Simple things a woman can do to improve her quality of sleep will be first of all try and get in bed by 9:30 to 10:00. What that does is helps keep the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisole down throughout the night. Secondly, avoiding caffeine, sugar, alcohol and simple carbohydrates. All of those things create fluctuations in your blood sugar levels which then exacerbate sleep disturbances at night.
A lot of people think alcohol will help them sleep but it’s actually the opposite because it may help you fall asleep initially however it is processed to the middle of the night in the liver and is actually turning to a toxic substance which ends up affecting the sleep centers in the brain.
Particularly if you’re perimenopausal, that alcohol is also competing with estrogen in your liver and that can actually trigger hot flashes or sweats in the middle of the night. What a lot of people don’t realize is caffeine may stay in your system for 18 to 20 hours after you’ve drink it. So even that you know cup of coffee in the morning really may stay in your system for a long time. So avoid those things. Know news, do not watch the news particularly at night before going to bed. Images have a very powerful impact on our immune system and our stress response. So avoiding you know, negative thoughts and you know heavy TV and intense show like dramas are really important. So I was encouraging everybody watch something funny or you know something uplifting.
Other things that you can do would include having like a gratitude journal or some type of meditation, poetry, a daily reader, again that’s positive and uplifting. So right before you go bed, you’re actually putting some positive, affirming thoughts in your mind and that can help stay with you throughout the night.
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