Improving your sleep patterns to improve your well-being and performance.

It is interesting how much we take the concept of sleep for granted. Let alone also taking for granted what we think is enough sleep. Until the invention of gas lamps in the 19th century, people slept when the sun set. Note that in various different places around the world and varies in those places vastly at different times of the year. For example summer nights are just a few hours the closer you get to the north or south poles and winter the absolute opposite.

These natural changes in daylight were a way of conditioning people to activity and synchronising them to a pattern of rest. You had no choice in pre-industrial life to sleep. Studies do challenge whether people would sleep immediately after sunset. It was dark and humans cannot see in the dark. So in winter you would be sleeping more because it was just dark longer and in summer you were more active because there was more daylight. Quite simple. Animals that are not nocturnal - and do not have nocturnal capabilities such as low IR vision or acute senses of smell and hearing - still follow this today pattern of activity today.

Disrupted sleep pre-dates the evolution of electrical lighting, most notably in the form of biphasic sleep patterns dating back to the 1400s, in which people would wake up in the middle of the night by candelight or by fire places, suggesting something deeper in the psychology of why humanity has had an urge to challenge its natural anthropological realities through manipulating science to its own means.

Our sleep patterns have evolved and adapted with the way technology has changed our lives. There is a suggestion that the Victorian-Era method of sleep which is similar to that of the middle ages may benefit sleep disorders such as insomnia. This would mean sleeping for a few hours and then waking up and then going back to sleep. But what if you just cannot get to sleep early enough or cannot sleep at all?

Not every sleep disorder is necessarily for want of sleep, but rather for want of "properly rested sleep" and those factors we will look at include:

1. Sleeping earlier;
2. Sleeping longer;
3. Sleeping after having exercised; and
4. How you sleep.

We are going to take a look at the technical elements of each of the above and some of the scientific and medical discussion around that and then in our extended piece we will look at techniques you can adopt that will help not only improve your sleep and sleep patterns but also give you an edge by way of your performance and productivity.

For an extended version of this article jump over to our website. www.nuovelife.com.

Exercising in the evenings is sometimes there only option for people, but then distinguish evenings from the last action of the day, i.e. exercise just before you sleep. There is that option as well. There are pros and cons to doing this. The advantages of exercise were noted that:

• Sleep right after a workout allows your body time to repair and grow muscle tissue.
• Exercising can make you feel tired immediately after, which could promote sleep.

Conversely it may be less beneficial:

• You may burn fewer calories if you go to bed right after as opposed to staying awake and moving around. However, this is not a hard fact, and there is conflicting evidence to suggest that working out right before going to bed or taking a nap can actually promote weight loss.
• An intense workout can make you feel “wound up” and unable to go to bed right afterward.
• Exercising increases cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone, so elevated amounts can prevent sleep.

We would also add in that if you exercise well enough - either intensity or duration - to drain your body of its remaining energy, then you will be forced to sleep. The challenge is fitting in the time in a day that does not force you to be sleeping too much past midnight. It is a constant challenge in the modern lifestyle that is so saturated with constant communication and information. The solution is not a one size fits all by any means. You need to work out what works best for you.

More sleep in its own right can be beneficial. The extra hour spent sleeping can give you greater clarity, purpose and productivity. There are plenty of examples of professions from computer-based work to manual labour that give us an insight into the diminishing returns from tiredness. There comes a point when your eyes are just too sore to keep looking at a computer screen, then you should be disciplined and mindful enough to call it a day. Your body will thank you for it tomorrow and you will get a better quality of result, and you will also feel better about what you are doing. Again, everyone is different, and some people will push past the exhaustion.

The question then remains, what other options are there for improving sleep and rest, which in turn will lead to greater productivity, i.e. improve your performance. Keep in mind that performance is primarily thought of as work, but in our personal, domestic and non-work lives, if we are able to better deal with issues because we are calm, relaxed and rested, then we are able to get a better outcome for our professional lives as well.

The question we need to ask is what is my sleep like now? Am I happy with my level of sleep?

All the scientific studies and all the material are no compensation for the self-awareness and insight of you as the individual. Some people are just night-owls and that is okay. Some people are morning people and will want to exercise in the morning and sleep earlier. Do what works for you. If you feel tired always, assess why, maybe it is an external factor causing pressures and the resultant stress.

We go into more depth on how to achieve this and some techniques at www.nuovelife.com.