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How To Improve Sleep and Sleep Quality

sleepWith the pandemic still looming over us, it has become increasingly imperative to boost our immunity. While a healthy diet, exercise and hygiene play an important role, we should also focus on adequate sleep! Getting good quality sleep every night helps the T-Cells in our body fight off infections. Poor sleep increases inflammation and there’s a likelihood of developing cardiovascular diseases as well. 

How to Improve Sleep Quality

In case you are not getting adequate rest or aren’t getting any quality sleep or are facing issues falling asleep, we have some tips to help you out: 

  1. Bedtime and wake up time should be the same. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time daily. Practice the same routine on weekends too. 
  2. Maintain Sleep Hygiene: Do not consume alcohol 6 hours before bedtime. Also avoid caffeine 4 hours before sleeping and do not smoke before going to bed.  
  3. Limit Screen Time: Stay away from your gadgets and mobile phones at least an hour before sleeping. Put your phones on DND mode for uninterrupted rest.
  4. Environment Is Everything: Keep your bedroom environment clean, calm, dark and quiet. Make sure that your mattress and pillows are comfortable. 
  5. Eat a Light Dinner: Strictly avoid heavy meals at night and finish your dinner 2-3 hours before going to bed. If possible, go for a light walk after dinner every day. 
  6. In case you find it difficult to fall asleep, you can listen to light to soothing music 45 minutes before bedtime. Music generally soothes our nerves, reduces stress levels, and helps us fall asleep faster. 
  7. Deep breathing is a very effective tool for inducing good quality sleep. Do deep breathing 10 minutes before bedtime daily to improve your sleep and reduce stress levels. You can also try these breathing techniques: https://goqii.com/blog/breathing-techniques-for-better-sleep/  
  8. A Lukewarm Shower 1-2 hours before bed is a well-known remedy for sleeplessness. It significantly improves sleep quality and reduces anxiety.
  9. Lavender oil is used for aromatherapy which improves sleep quality, especially for people who are fighting with insomnia, depression, and anxiety. You can put  2-3 drops of lavender oil on your wrist or pillow at night, it will soothe your nerves and help you fall asleep easily.

If you’ve tried the above techniques and still face issues with sleeping, start drinking warm milk with a pinch of nutmeg or turmeric 30 minutes before bedtime. It should help. If sleeplessness issues persist, consider speaking to your doctor. 

For more techniques on how to sleep and to learn about sleep-related issues, check out Healthy Reads or ask a GOQii Coach by subscribing for personalized coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce  

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Sleep Series: In Praise Of Darkness!

sleep series

In the beginning there was only darkness and then, light came out of darkness! Light and darkness are not two different and opposing things. Society has made a villain out of darkness. Darkness is used as a synonym of all things sinister. We are trained from childhood to look at darkness with fear.

In Hindu religion, darkness is deified – we have “Maha Kaal” and “Maha Kaali” – in religion this could either mean “darkness” or “time” – there is close relationship between them, but that is for another day. 

There is darkness everywhere – interstellar, intergalactic is just darkness.

Modern living has opted for lights of high luminescence. The poor old incandescent light of 60 watt (tungsten filament bulb) has a luminosity of 400-800 lumens whereas the modern day LED lamps can produce the same lumens at just 5 Watts. Where we had one incandescent light, now we have at least 4 LED! Which means we are consuming 5 times more light! 

Light has to be light ( Pun intended)

Since we fear darkness, we have created a social necessity (business necessity?) for bright light, whereas the number 1 villain for good sleep is LIGHT! Many of us know of the bad impact of blue light emitted from phones, laptops and tablets. Evenings are intended to be a journey to acclimatize to emerging darkness and night time is intended to be pitch-dark by nature.

So, for a good night’s sleep, the gradual reducing of lighting and luminosity is a must. Which means after 7:30pm, you should: 

  • Slowly switch off lights and send a signal of reducing light to the eyes
  • Make the bedroom pitch-dark for sleeping
  • Immediately activate “night mode” in Laptops and Phones

This could easily be the first step towards good sleep! Remember that you are meant to sleep in darkness. The sleep hormone Melatonin (more about this later) is highly impacted by luminosity. Darkness is key to sleep. Light is an inhibitor of sleep. Embrace the darkness, start falling in love with it! Darkness is the source of all light, time and space and is a good first step to a good sleep.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article so far. Stay tuned for more from the Sleep Series! To read more about sleep and sleeping techniques, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play. 

#BeTheForce  

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Sleep Your Way to More Muscles

sleep your way to more muscleDid you know you can build muscles even while sleeping? The three aspects of the muscle building pyramid are nutrition, training and rest. Most of us pay close attention to the first two factors but frequently ignore the third and suffer the consequences. Sleep isn’t a luxury for the human body, it’s a genuine necessity. Extended periods of sleep deprivation can lead to amnesia, delusions and hallucinations. Shorter stretches cause forgetfulness, bad moods and irritability.

How Does Sleep Lead To More Muscles? 

If you’re trying to gain strength, sleep becomes even more important because it’s synonymous with recovery. If your body doesn’t get to fully recuperate from a hard workout, there’s no way it will be ready for the next one. Heavy training destroys tissues. In order for the tissue to be repaired, your body needs the proper nutrients and deep sleep. One of the key events that occur during sleep is that the body releases growth hormones which are critical for repairing tissues, maintaining tonus in the muscles and keeping the fat in the cells. Since the body releases growth hormones only during deep sleep, the question is how do you get deep sleep?

Getting enough rest is critical to your overall health. Lack of sleep, even for a single night, can have a huge effect on your immune system. Research has shown that there’s a 20-30% drop in the immune system cells that fight cancer and viruses after just one night of sleeplessness. If sleeplessness continues over several days, the percentage of decreased immune system cells climbs drastically. The good news is that you can bring the number of cells back to normal with a solid night’s sleep.

So How Much Sleep Is Enough?

That depends on individual to individual and it depends on many variables. Ideally, one should aim to get at least 7-8 hours of sound sleep. Sleep is the most critical variable affecting our workouts. How well we have slept the previous night will determine how good a workout you do the next morning.

Work-related stress is one of the many reasons that most suffer from sleep deprivation. One of the best things you can do is slip in to a nap prior to your workout. You don’t want to drop off into the deeper stages of sleep before training because it will make you groggy. 20-30 minutes is plenty before a workout.

How Can You Induce Sleep Quickly? 

Deep sleep at night is very important and here are some of the things we can do to get sleep fast:

  • Read to relax
  • Take a shower or soak in the tub
  • Listen to soothing music
  • Try Chamomile tea
  • Warm turmeric milk will induce melatonin, which is a sleep hormone
  • A light snack can be useful in promoting a more relaxed state, but it’s smart to select foods that contain the amino acid tryptophan, which converts to serotonin in the brain, helping you to feel drowsy. Milk, yogurt, cheese, turkey and fish contain tryptophan.

What to Avoid Before Sleeping 

Now here are some things you should not do if you want to have a good night’s sleep:

  • Don’t overindulge in alcohol
  • Avoid eating large quantities of food. Eating a large meal before bedtime isn’t conducive to sleep as the food will trigger various systems, including the heart, to work harder. Also, the digestive tract may become upset and disrupt sleep even more.
  • Avoid stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine. This includes tea, coffee and soft drinks as well.
  • Avoid any form of strenuous exercise or participating in a competitive sport as it will work against you. Vigorous physical activity stimulates the body, and it takes some time to calm you down.
  • Don’t take your work to bed. If you make your bedroom an extension of your office, you’re sure to carry business problems with you at night. Your bedroom should be a cool, dark, sleep chamber.

You may have to experiment a little to find out what works for you. But if you’re having trouble getting a good night’s rest on a regular basis, make some changes in your lifestyle, quickly. The “magical one-third of your life” is a critical variable in your quest to gain strength, so be mindful of that.

We hope this article on sleep for muscle building helps you. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below. For more on muscles and sleep, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play.

#BeTheForce 

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The connection between Sleep and Liver!

sleep

Sleep can never be categorised as a boring topic to discuss. 8 out of 10 people love to sleep at any time of the day. For some sleeping is one of the best relaxation techniques.

An old adage says ‘Early to bed, Early to rise, Make a man healthy, wealthy and wise’. How true is this phrase? Is it alright to sleep late and wake up late?

In this digital world….the bedtime for most people has changed drastically. Mobile phones, laptop, work pressure, deadlines and online markets have captured most of the sleep time leading to sleep issues for most. I have many clients who have everything in life but not good sleep.

We all know Good sleep is very necessary for good health and to live long years.  Lack of sleep or sleeping late can reduce your cognitive power, ages your skin faster, leads to weight gain, increased risk of death and also impairs judgment and decision making ability.

While sleep requirements vary from person to person, most adults require about 7-8hours of sleep. Children and teens need even more. But, yes the quality of sleep is more important than quantity of sleep.

We have an amazing biological clock given by nature inside our body. Various functions occur in our body when we are sleeping. The most important function is detoxification which happens during our sleep hours.

So ideally between 11 pm to 3 am….most of our blood circulation concentrates in our liver. The liver gets larger when filled with more blood. This is the time when liver undergoes detoxification process. But, if you cannot sleep during this hour, the liver cannot perform its function smoothly.

Later you sleep lesser the body detoxifies and keeps accumulating toxins in the body leading to weight gain, ageing, greying hair, belly fat, low immunity, multiple organ disorders and impure blood too.

Have you ever noticed when you go to bed very late…you end up feeling tired and lazy the next day? Why does this happen?

In yoga practice, it is advised to wake up as early as 4 am and 5 am and exercise. Why is that?

Because between 3-5am, most of the blood circulation is concentrated in the lungs.  Breathing fresh air and exercise during this time is good. As per yoga, this is called Brahma Muhurat. During this time, the air is fresh, the mind is calm and stable and there is very less pollution.

Between -5-7am most of the blood circulation concentrates in the large intestine. This is the right time to Poop. Pass out all unwanted toxins from the body, preparing the body to absorb good nutrients during the rest of the day.

From 7-9am most of the blood circulation concentrates in the stomach. This is a good time to have breakfast and digest food well. Having healthy breakfast is a great way to start the day.

Have you ever noticed the daily routine of our grandparents? No matter what happens they sleep early and wake up early and carry out their routine work. This is the only reason they are so fresh, energetic and healthier even in the old age as they have followed their biological clock.

If you go against nature, things will turn out bad!

Some helpful tips to support your liver and get a good night sleep.

  1. Drinking lemon water in the morning
  2. Choose cruciferous veggies in the day for their liver supporting properties
  3. Try to express emotions in the best way rather than suppressing it as the liver is somewhere connected to your emotions too
  4. Have a light dinner and keep a gap of 2hours before bed
  5. Turn off the phone, laptop, Ipad for one hour before bedtime Use this time as ME time by reading  books, meditation, reflection and yes chatting with family members
  6. Avoid stimulants like caffeine and sugar post 5 pm
  7. Practice yoga
  8. Have warm milk at bedtime to get good sleep as it enhances the production of sleep hormone.

 

 

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