At the start of the New Year, many of us turned our attention to improving our health and wellbeing. January is a favourite time for people to decide to try to lose some weight, especially after the marathon over consumption that happens during the Christmas and New Year break!
However, the best laid diet plan can be scuppered by a lack of sleep. As we’re now in February and some of your best-laid plans may have fallen by the wayside, Mental Health First Aid Instructor, Andy Elwood, shares some information on how to sleep better.
‘How are you sleeping? Would you like to improve your sleep? In a survey by the Sleep Evangelist, 58% of people said that they would. Are you like 70% of paramedics recently surveyed who were sleep deprived when they turned up for work at the start of their shift? This is a real common problem. Did you know that when we’re not sleeping so well, we consume 300 more calories the day after a bad night’s sleep?
If you focus on one thing to improve your health this month, I would really encourage anyone reading this to focus on their sleep. Simple changes can make a huge difference. When I was at a mental health symposium in December, I heard The Sleep Evangelist, Dr Sophie Bostock speak. She’s an amazing speaker and what really grabbed me is that there’s a bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health. If your sleep is poor, your mental health will be adversely affected. If your sleep is good, it lifts your mood and you’ll have more positive mental health. So, there is a direct correlation between the two. And it also corroborates with other research carried out around suicide behaviour and poor sleep and/or lack of sleep.
According to Dr Sophie, when you optimise sleep and get your body clocks working in sync with a 24-hour circadian rhythm, you can really take control of an incredibly powerful lever for improving performance, health and your wellbeing. There’s lots of information about this on her website and in her blogs. If you prefer to read a book, then I’d recommend Why We Sleep by Professor Matthew Walker.
Over the past couple of months I’ve made some simple changes to my routines. One of them is reducing my caffeine intake, not just overall but also the timing of it. Cutting that off earlier in the day, reducing my alcohol intake and getting up at the same time seven-days-a-week has made a massive difference for me. Establishing that routine is so important.
Even if you’re doing shifts or if you’ve been up late sometimes, then setting your alarm clock and getting up at the same time seven days a week is really beneficial. Getting up at the same time Monday to Friday and having a lie in at the weekend has been proven not to be good for you. However, getting up at the same time every day is fantastic and I hardly need to set the alarm now, I wake automatically. And I have much more of a spring in my step.
There’ll be something for everyone on Dr Sophie’s blog, so why not take a look and see how you can improve your sleep.’
About Andy
Andy Elwood is a Mental Health First Aid instructor and an ambassador for Movember. He creates safety and trust by sharing his own vulnerability and gives a unique ‘behind the scenes’ insight into life and death situations from his 20 years’ experience working in the emergency services as a paramedic on search and rescue helicopters.
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