While I was growing up, I came to realize that sleep is a necessity, it is very important to our mental health.
The reason for my conclusion is this; whenever I do not get enough sleep, especially at night, I wake up feeling extremely tired, my headaches and I lack the motivation to carry out my activity for the day.
But whenever I have enough sleep, I feel refreshed, energized, and active for the day. Sleep takes my worry away at least for the time being.
Why then do we find it hard to sleep?
It is a lot easier for a toddler to fall asleep than it is for an adult to fall asleep.
Maybe it's because we as adults have a lot to think about, how to carter for the family, how to achieve our goals and all, but toddlers have nothing to worry about.
The circadian rhythm too can be a factor, have you noticed that if you train your body to be up from bed every 5 am, with time, you wouldn't need an alarm, your eyes just open when it is 5 am or a few mins past or before 5?
The body wakes in line with the way it has been trained. So even if one sleeps pretty late, the biological clock never fails, you might feel so weak to be up but trust me, you're conscious and alert at that time.
The lack of melatonin is also a reason we find it hard to sleep, our brain helps our hormones respond to darkness which is why we tend to fall asleep when the light is out, however, we find ourselves on our phone, which disrupts our ability to fall asleep.
How can we improve our sleep?
I've come to realize that workouts before bedtime disrupts our tendency to fall asleep.
It is better to work out (exercise) during the day (morning/afternoon), it helps to relax your muscle and make you feel drowsy during bedtime.
A warm bath, listening to soothing music, or reading something exciting can also help to make one fall asleep easily.
I for one can never sleep in a noisy environment, but it amazes me how some can sleep amidst the noise. So if you can sleep in a noisy environment, who am I to tell you to find a quiet place?😅
Set curfews!!
I don't joke with my sleep so what I do Is set an alarm clock, and I ensure I discipline myself to obey nature's call.
I do wake up at 4:30 am every day or 5:00 am at most, I got used to this right from childhood, so because I know I need about 7-8hours of sleep I make sure I sleep by 9:15 pm at most 10:00, I lay in bed and close my eyes and make an intentional effort to ease my mind from worries.
The only time I have had trouble sleeping was when I had an emotional crisis, I would cry every night and stay up thinking, I could be lying down but my brain keeps working, thinking and thinking, I became very lean like I had an illness, just because I deprived myself of sleep for days.
I started to crave food during the dead time of the night which is unhealthy for me, if I had continued that way, I would have been obese, so I think lack of sleep leads to obesity.
I am a fashion designer and it's really hard to keep up with the work as I take some clothes home to sew, I ensure this doesn't interfere with my sleep, at first I will sew at night, through the night, this started to affect me drastically, I tend to forget easily, get angry easily, have constant mood swings and get overwhelmed, I had to devise a new method, what I do now is never to collect fabrics from a client who wants it at rush hour, although money is involved, my health is more important, isn't health wealth?
And my goal this year is never to joke with my sleep at all, so far I'm trying my best to sleep very well, especially at night when everywhere is serene.
Some people believe sleep is a waste of time and so they prefer to occupy themselves with other activities probably to meet deadlines or to even enjoy a social function, but please be aware that a lack of sleep affects your memory, makes you age quickly, and eventually kills slowly.
All images used are mine.