Our 21st century lifestyle is having a massive impact on the sleep we are getting.
A recent government report stated that at least 2 in 5 Australians is having long term sleep problems or a major sleeping disorder. That is 10.3 million or 40% of Australians.
The impact of not getting restful sleep contributes to many personal and professional issues. It is starting to have a real impact on our everyday lives, communities, and workplaces. It is impacting our overall wellbeing.
Why are we not sleeping well?
Our modern-day society puts our body and mind in a state of chronic stress. Between work and social interactions, stress is on the rise and threatening to become the defining illness of our generation.
What is stress?
Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone. Our body is designed to experience stress and react to it through our ancestral Fight – Fight – Freeze response. This hard-wired primitive response kept our ancestors alive and in our modern day living it helps the body face stressful situations.
The stress we are referring to is called Eustress. Eustress produces positive feelings of excitement, fulfilment, meaning, satisfaction, and well-being. This is a minor stress that motivates and invigorates us. We feel challenged but not overwhelmed.
Great everyday examples of eustress are starting a new job, getting a promotion, buying a home, having a child, getting married or going on a holiday.
Eustress on the other hand can become distress and eventually chronic stress when we accumulate it.
How are we accumulating stress?
- 27/7 Lifestyle of being “connected” through technology.
We are always “on” our devices and social platforms where we are in pursuit of unachievable standards of beauty, lifestyle, and productivity. Is checking your phone the last thing you do before going to bed and the first thing you do when you wake up? Do you read and answer emails outside of work hours or do you prioritise reading and answering your messages over your real-life connections and interactions with the people around you?
If yes, this is certainly a big source of chronic stress in your life.
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“I have no time; I am to busy”
We are trying to much, too often and are going to fast as we want to keep up with everyone else who seem to be “doing it all”. Have you caught yourself lately saying “I am to busy”?
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Work-Life
Excessive job demands, unfulfilling and purposeless jobs, not feeling valued, job insecurity and conflicts with teammates and supervisors all cause daily distress and worry.
What is chronic stress?
Stress fires up our sympathetic nervous system and puts our mind and body in a state of Fight-Flight-Freeze.
When stress becomes constant and the Fight-Flight-Freeze is always on, it creates and overstimulation of the central nervous system, the system that helps our body stay alert and ready to respond.
The parasympathetic nervous system that helps our body relax and rejuvenate is being compromised leaving the mind body system under constant threat.
A sleep deprived work-life
Where to start, it is a long list how lack of restful sleep impacts work-life.
Let’s start by looking at your work relationships. Without good sleep it is more difficult to communicate, and that includes listening. Communication requires a level of being alert and aware and to effectively communicate we need to be able to listen with attention. This is all heavily impacted by lack of restorative sleep.
You will have trouble concentrating on what is being said, you will likely be a bit ‘grumpy’ and misunderstand other people’s intentions and you can be less tolerant towards your colleague’s differing opinions. This can put a big strain on all your work relationships, from colleagues to managers to clients.
It can also have a huge impact on your performance, productivity, and the quality of your work. Concentrating on a specific task for a long period of time becomes difficult making reaching deadlines or learning something new very challenging.
Your ability to problem solve declines so you start to think in problems only and ‘can’t do’ mode instead of seeing opportunities and have a “can-do” attitude.
As your immune system is affected by lack of sleep, you will probably have to take more sick days. This can lead to a chronic “catching up” on work which in turn leads to more stress and more sleep issues. It can also have a massive impact on your career progression.
What does a restorative sleep feel like?
- You wake up naturally around 6am rested, rejuvenated, and full of energy;
- You feel in flow, can handle stress, an embrace changes throughout the day;
- You make it through the day without the well know “4pm crash”;
- You make healthy lifestyle choices such as choosing nutritious food over junk food;
- You feel mentally fit and can concentrate and pay attention throughout your entire day;
- You are rarely sick and when you are sick, you have a swift recovery;
- You have a positive mindset that sees solutions instead of problems;
- You can self-regulate;
- You feel vitality and joy.
You feel some of these amazing things because restorative sleep is just that, it restores the mind and body and allows it to repair itself. It releases physical toxins and strengthens the immune system, especially when you follow the rhythms of nature.
Restful sleep releases the chronic stress you are accumulating every day.
How to improve your sleep
One of the first steps is to bring awareness to why you are not feeling rested and rejuvenated when you wake up.
Is it because you took hours to fall asleep because your thoughts would not turn off? Is it because you woke up around 2pm and could not get back to sleep? Did you sleep ok but somehow are still feeling very tired when you wake up?
By getting insight into why your sleep is impacted it will help you find patterns and causes that you may wish to address first. It can also help you decide to seek help from a professional. This can range from a sleep disorder specialist to a physician or even a coach.
There are some simple lifestyle choice and daily practices you can introduce that can help getting a good night’s sleep.
A few simple lifestyle choices can already have a big impact:
- Try to eat before 7pm and have at least 3 hours between your last meal and going to bed. This will give your body time to digest your food. Eating late will make you wake up in the middle of the nights as your body is still “active” as it is digesting your food
- The well-known “limit screen time” before going to bed. This works in two ways. Most of the images we take in from our screens fire up our mind so we have a hard time falling asleep and wake up in the middle of the night as our mind is still “digesting’ the images it has seen. The second is that blue light sends falls signals to our brains that it is still light. When it is still light we do not start making our sleep hormone melatonin and we have a hard time falling asleep.
A few simple daily practices that can have a big impact:
- Stop the “worry mind” by dumping out the stress of the day with recapitalising writing. Just ‘downloading’ your thoughts and concerns on a piece of paper can be a good way to start calming the mind and body. This is not to be mistaken with writing in a diary, it is about recapitalising objectively about what you witnessed during your day and get it onto a piece of paper.
- Taking a warm bath or shower can help relax body and mind making you fall asleep easily. Warmth can be grounding and calm your mind and body from the activities of the day.
- Meditation is a powerful antidote to stress. During meditation your mind and body go into a deep state of rest in which the body heals itself by eliminating stress, fatigue and toxins. 20 minutes of meditation twice a day has the same effect as a night of restful sleep.
We know different things work for different people so try out what works for you. There are so many amazing tools you can use like apps with guided sleep meditations or soft sounds of music and sounds of nature to help you fall asleep.
Recognise that the state you go to sleep in is is very important for mental and physical health, you want to wake up rejuvenated so you can move into your purpose with flow again the next day.
How wellbeing coaching can help you sleep
A wellbeing coach can guide you on your journey to changing your lifestyle, learned behaviours and help you reach your wellbeing goals.
Coaching is a mindful approach to help you uncover the obstacles preventing you from a good night’s sleep, while also empowering you to recognize and celebrate what is supporting your sleep. In partnership with a coach, you can articulate and implement your personal wellbeing vision.
Coaching is an empowering process that is intended to unlock the power of possibility.