SLEEP is really important and medical evidence shows that poor sleep can affect both your physical and mental health, writes Dr Richard Davies.
Getting a good night’s sleep not only allows your body and mind the time to rest and recover from the day you’ve have just had, it also provides an opportunity for your brain to process and sort all the information that it’s taken in during the day.
Today (Friday) is World Sleep Day, which aims to promote the benefits of good sleep and provide information about how this can be achieved. Find out more at http://worldsleepday.org/
It seems individual people need different amounts of sleep, some can get by on as little as five hours, while others need a good ten hours to function well the next day. What’s important is the quality of sleep.
So what if you can’t get off to sleep, or you wake in the early hours and can’t get back to sleep? Here are some tips to improve your night’s sleep:
· Don’t drink any tea or coffee after 6pm
· If you have worries then write them down before you go to bed or if you wake in the middle of the night thinking about them
· Get plenty of exercise – if you are physically tired then you will sleep better
· Avoid excessive alcohol in the evening. While it may help you get off to sleep you often will wake up in the early hours when it wears off and then it is hard to get back to sleep
· Don’t use any electronic devices just before you go to bed
· Try reading before you go to bed.
More information about ways to improve your sleep, including a sleep self-assessment test can be found at www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Sleep-self-assessment.aspx To stay up-to-date, follow @RB_CCG on Twitter.
