sleeP better

HAVe A WAlK

The best light at this time of the year is between 11am and 3pm, so get yourself outside. Even a short walk or a sit on a bench for a few minutes will help get your mood up and keep seasonal affective disorder, SAD, at bay and improve sleep.

We don’t get the right levels of daylight and darkness, with not too much artificial light. We need a proper balance of natural light in our system.

tAKe A breAK

We just don’t get the little breaks we used to, away from what we’re doing.

We’ve lost that and we’re not moving from our desks.

What people don’t realise is that you can’t decide you’re going to sleep and get quality from it in the last 10 minutes of your day.

Everything you do, from when you wake up, will determine that. You do need those little breaks, even for a couple of minutes.

You need to manage how you interact with this stuff.

People have this fear of missing out and you have to realise that it’s OK to be away from it all.

And the final 90 minutes to an hour before you’re planning to go to sleep is as important as when you’re actually sleeping.

If you can’t break away from moving from light to dark, warm to cool, to find a way to relax away from your tech, you’re more than likely to have disturbed sleeping patters. You might wake a few times and won’t sleep all the way through.

That means you’re wasting many hours where you’re not getting quality sleep.

eAt AND DrINK better

Watch what you’re eating and drinking.

We eat comfort foods that are high in carbs at this time of year and we have hot drinks which push the caffeine levels up. The highs and lows of caffeine can affect your moods and sleep considerably.

I talk about sleep coming in 90-minute cycles. If I make 11pm my sleep time then five cycles will take me though to my wake time of 6.30am.

So, I don’t want to eat anything too heavy after 9pm.

sleeP Well

Take naps if you can. A 15 to 20-minute zone-out period between 1pm and 3pm or 5pm and 7pm will help balance the pressure on sleeping at night.

Do tHe lIGHt tHING

You need blue light – daylight – in the morning to shift away the melatonin and release the serotonin that controls what you do when you’re awake.

So, think about getting a