Dr. Michael Hunter here. Once again we're turning our attention to sleep, this time with a handful of pointers drawn from NBC News to help you get the most out of your shut-eye.
Roughly 50 to 70 million American adults live with some form of sleep or wakefulness disorder, based on estimates from the Institutes of Medicine (USA). Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than a third of Americans say they routinely get less than the seven to nine hours of nightly rest recommended for adults. A 2014 National Sleep Foundation survey found that 45 percent of Americans reported that poor sleep had interfered with their daytime activities at least once in the previous week. Figures like these are enough to make sleep specialists wince. So what steps can you take to improve your sleep hygiene?
1. Give Yourself Time to Wind Down
Put on some soothing music, enjoy a warm shower, or move through a few gentle yoga stretches. Even if you only have two minutes before climbing into bed, use them to sit quietly in the dark, do nothing at all, and let your mind settle
2. Put the Devices Away
Cell phones can interfere with your body’s powering down. And the same goes for laptops, TVs, tablets and other electronics.
3. Keep an Eye on Caffeine
If better sleep is your goal, keep caffeine to the morning hours. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine takes a slightly more lenient stance, advising that you steer clear of caffeine in the late afternoon and evening.
4. Be Mindful of Alcohol
Alcohol acts as a sedative: it can leave you drowsy and may help you fall asleep fast. But that's an artificial route to slumber — your brain drops straight into deep sleep and stays there instead of cycling through the other sleep stages, such as REM sleep, the phase in which we dream. Each of those stages helps restore our bodies and minds for the day ahead. What's more, the alcohol effect fades later on, so your body ends up spending more time in the lighter stages of sleep during the second half of the night, when you're more prone to tossing, turning and waking up (and dreaming).
