How to Improve Your Sleep
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As we get into the summer months, the weather is getting warmer, and that generally means people start having worse sleep.
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This is due to both the weather being warmer and also the fact that there are more sunshine hours in the day. The warmth can really make it hard to get to sleep, and to actually stay asleep. The extra sunshine can wake you up earlier in the mornings, keep you up later in the evenings, and of course, the extra sunshine usually encourages more socialising
in general.
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Poor sleep generally isn’t great for your health or your fitness goals. So what is the fix?
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This is something we encounter in our coaching throughout the year, but especially in the lead into summer and throughout summer. So what we generally encourage at this time of year is to set up good sleep habits now, and build some momentum with those habits. You don’t have to be excessive with this, and a few habits really do compound and go a long
way.
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The first thing you need to do is actually schedule your sleep. If you are going to get 8 hours of sleep, that means you need to schedule that into your day. Whatever time you need to wake up at, work back 8.5 hours from that point and that is your bed time. So if you need to be up at 6am, then 9:30pm is your bed time. We tend to recommend working back
8.5 hours as that allows for some time to actually fall asleep and to do all the things you need to do before bed.
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This is the step that most people skip, and to be honest, it is the most important step. So please don’t skip it.
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The next thing is to try and keep your sleep and wake times consistent. Nothing magic here, but your body does like to stay in a rhythm with sleep. So waking up at random times and going to sleep at random times each day, really doesn’t help you to get consistently good sleep.
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