• HealthSmart | Health & Wellbeing
• Mind & Body
• The Sleep Diet

The Sleep Diet (page 2 of 7)

• Rating:
• 
• (0 votes)
• Rate this!
  Rate this!

  Rate this feature

Work and life

Dump the 24/7 stuff.
Even if drop into bed for the six hours researchers claim most of us spend there, our minds are full of what-ifs, why-did-wes and what’s-on-the-agenda-tomorrows.

All this rumination and agitation ignites stress hormones that keep us in a state of perpetual arousal. That’s why we should make a serious attempt to simplify our lives, says Dr Cecile Andrews, author of Slow Is Beautiful. Draw up your to-do list, then take a big breath and start crossing things off, she says. It’s a bit humbling to realise, but you really don’t have to do it all.

Don’t work so late.
The prevailing thought is that you have to stay late to get the job done. But working right up until bedtime is bound to affect your sleep. Go home at a reasonable hour. The truth is that it’s better to go get some sleep, then come back and do more work in the morning. Studies show that after a good night’s sleep, your increased ability to concentrate means that you can work faster and more accurately.

Manage the electronics.
Being eternally hooked up to your mobile phone or BlackBerry creates stress by forcing on us what Rockefeller University’s Dr Bruce McEwen calls “a wholly artificial sense of urgency”. You don’t have to do without your gadgets to cut stress – just control them. Turn off your mobile in the evening, and the instant notification on your e-mail too. Switch off your monitor, ditch the night-light and rotate the clock-radio display. Your brain can misinterpret even dim lights and wonder if it should wake you up. Total darkness tells your brain it’s time to sleep.