SOUND UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP

You arise disoriented, exhausted in the morning. The erratic sleep has depleted your energies, and you hasten for a mug of tea. Sleep is nature’s panacea, mightier than any medicine to repair and recharge the body. During sleep, the housekeeping duties come into action; the repair of cells, tissues, muscles, and removal of toxic waste. Lack of it weakens the immune system, the onset of lifestyle diseases, poor memory, and deficit focus. This deprivation not only jeopardises our performance but makes us poor judge our faculties. We crave junk food, our blood sugar levels rise, affecting hormone levels.

While REM sleep reconfigures emotional circuits in the brain and creativity, NREM enriches learning, memorising, and motoring abilities. Too much REM sleep full of dreams is not good if not followed by deep NREM sleep.

Our alertness wanes during midday, twenty to thirty minutes of a catnap in the afternoon refreshing us for the rest of the day. Longer naps can disturb our sleep at night.

Tidy place, relaxing bath, gratitude prayer before bed, aromatherapy sets the mind in a relaxed state. Tested and tried yoga asanas do help, and so does deep abdominal breathing. It relaxes the tense muscles and reduces anxiety, and you sleep like a baby. A structured day with rest and a work routine will make you less sleep-deprived. A grumbling stomach can be distracting enough to keep you awake, but so can an overly full stomach. Caffeine stimulates the nervous system, refreshes in the daytime, can have the opposite effect in the late evening.

Eating bananas, cherries, eggs, milk, fish, nuts, magnesium-rich food, and comfortably digestible protein is a lullaby for sweet dreams. Being hale and hearty prevents us from being insomniacs. The requirement for medicine then is a distinct possibility. An occasional sleepless night is acceptable, but too many of these require a visit to the doctor. The natural alternates do not compensate for medication when it is needed. 

Getting enough natural light in the daytime is favourable for our circadian rhythm, however, white light during the late evening can trick your brain into thinking it is still daytime, so it is best avoided at least two hours before sleep. Dim lights signal the brain to make melatonin which aids sleep.

The spotless, pristine, and stress-free bedroom is our sleep oasis. Soothing music helps to create the right environment. We surrender our body and mind to sleep to wake up refreshed in the morning. As children, we had bedtime rituals of taking a bath, read stories that lulled us to sleep. These rituals send signals to the brain to wind down for the day.

We need to be protective of our sleep space and make it non-negotiable for the growth hormones to work well for our well-being. So literally get up on the right side of the bed after counting enough sheep with a proper nighttime routine to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. 

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