How Behavior May Affect Your Sleep
Human behavior can affect not only the sleep quality but also the ability to fall asleep.
Eating increases your metabolic rate as well as your body temperature, which are critical factors in natural sleep. Body temperature dropping is conducive to good sleep. This explains why you should not eat at least three hours before going to bed. A high body temperature prevents you from falling asleep, not to mention the bloated feeling that may bother you if you eat too much before bedtime.
You may also have experienced sluggishness after a heavy lunch meal, but that doesn't mean you can actually go to sleep or sleep well. The explanation is that a heavy meal causes your brain to divert energy from your muscles to work with your digestive system. This may disrupt your brain activities, and thus preventing you from sleeping well.
It is better to eat smaller meals than to eat one heavy meal with one or two light meals in between. Eating too much at one meal stresses not just your digestive system but also your brain.
Your eating behavior also includes the types of food you consume during the day. Cheese, for example, is said to give nightmares because it contains tyramine, an ingredient in cheese that can elevate blood pressure. MSG (monosodium glutamate), a taste enhancer in most restaurant cuisines, may cause digestive upsets, heartburn, and headaches, which often interrupt sleep. Yellow tartrazine (E-102), often added to fizzy drinks, candies, and cookies, may increase hyper-activity that may prevent you from falling asleep fast. In short, if you eat unhealthily, you tend to have sleep problems.
Many seniors have erroneously believe that if they drink too much, they need to frequent the bathroom more often, and thus may affect their sleep patterns. However, dehydration may adversely affect the brain, and hence the ability to sleep well at night. To remedy the situation, drink at least two liters of water a day, and drink it early in the morning so as to avoid bathroom trips at night.
To sleep well, avoid smoking or drinking an alcoholic "nightcap."
Nicotine may relax your body and mind, and make you fall asleep. However, once the nicotine is metabolized, it will wake you up in the middle of the night. Research studies at the University of Pennsylvania indicated that smokers took twice as long to fall asleep as non-smokers. To sleep well, quite smoking.
Drinking alcohol may be habit forming. If you have emotional problems, then you must deal with them, instead of using alcohol to obliterate them. If you really need a drink before bedtime, substitute your alcoholic drink with a hot milky drink or herbal drink.
Physical activities, which expand the natural range of movements, may help you sleep well. If your body remains too long in any one position, tension builds up in you muscles, and physical stress causes restlessness that prevents you to sleep well. Do pre-sleep stretch exercise to relax muscles to make you sleep well.
Meditation is an effective way to calm the body and mind to prepare you for natural sleep. Meditation releases any blocked energy that you may have inadvertently attached to any thought; by uncluttering the mind, meditation helps you let go of any restless thoughts that prevent you to sleep well.
If you have sleep problems, maybe your behavior is the culprit. A change in lifestyle goes a long way to help you sleep well.
Copyright (c) 2010 Stephen Lau
by: Stephen Lau
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