Generate Better Health Benefits In Your Sleep
Get in Sync With Your Health – Rest Better Visiting a medical practice, traditionally, is a form of damage control. Our Way Health, through community building and establishing strong relationships between doctors and would-be patients, aims to extend healthcare to instill a common knowledge that can, actually, reduce the need for you to “go to the doctor”. Common sense can often take a second seat to business practices, but we firmly believe in improving your connection to your own body and environment. Our Way Health intends to utilize all tools at our disposal to support your success in leading a healthy life. Our approach to medicine rests on four pillars of health: a set of medical principals that from which you can form habits, and enjoy a better quality of life. The first of these pillars is as simple as ensuring your body has a chance to regenerate from stress and negative impulses.
Sleep Is Good…Pillars of Health
Sleep delivers giant health benefits and here is why.
Due to the demands of modern life, little emphasis has been given until recently to the circadian rhythm, and how the body responds to our natural environment. Any irregularity in a resting cycle can have almost immediate effect on our health. Ever been jet lagged, pushed a big project through overnights, or stayed up with your children? Disruption to our rest makes us more susceptible to diseases, since our bodies can’t regenerate properly – it might be as simple as catching a cold easier, or lead to something much more severe, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a plethora of other problems.
… And A Good Rest Is Simpler Than You’d Think
We’re fully aware of the stress living in today’s world puts on our lives. We don’t want to be that annoying voice giving you advice you simply cannot heed. But ensuring a healthy rest is much more simple than people think. You don’t have to commit to unsustainable, big changes – all you need is stick to a handful of small ones, fitting them into your life as they fit. Simple principles can help you form a schedule that works for YOU, without having to drastically alter your life. In a relatively short time your body will start to adapt, and restart the normal healing and detoxification mechanisms.
Try a few different things:
- Eat dinner at a fixed time as much as possible – preferably 3 or 4 hours before going to bed, as to give yourself time to digest before lying down.
- Turn off, or reduce the amount of distractions and artificial lighting (screens, house lights) as much as possible an hour or two before going to bed. You can couple this with emphasizing your other senses through music, or family and friends time.
- Set a bedtime that works for your schedule, and try to stick to it. People usually need 7.5 hours of sleep, but if you need more or less your body will tell you.
- For the first week allow your body time to get in sync. During the adjustment period try to sleep more, to catch up.
- You can even find a meditative practice that works for you. In recent years multiple studies have been concluded, and they show that even a few minutes every day can help your body augment its regeneration and defenses.
After two weeks, evaluate: are you feeling better? Do your newly formed habits disrupt your daily life and productivity, or fit in? If changes need to be made, you can listen to your body, and find other things that will work for you. Seeing is believing and we believe sleep delivers giant health benefits, no matter what your age. Could this be the one area you derive the best health benefits this year?
Healthy Life Is Not An Oxymoron
Irregular and inadequate rest is a stress for which the body has no way to compensate. The diseases mentioned above, serious by themselves, can act as expressways towards even more complex health issues, and your body’s inability to cope with them. Modern medicine and technology is slowly recognizing the importance of these simple practices. While tools that can enhance your quality of rest are more and more abundant by the day, in many ways less is often more. Small, simple habits can be easier, cheaper, without dependence on anything other than our own body and mind – and faster to implement, while lasting longer, too.
Onto The Next Part In Your Pillars of Health
In our next blog post, we’ll be talking about how you can ensure and strengthen your health – with the same simplicity – by making better choices in food.