If you have trouble sleeping, rest assured you are not the only one. Perhaps “rest assured” is the wrong phrase … Anyway, surveys into this problem reveal that between 40 and 60% of us don’t sleep as well as we’d like to. It may be down to money worries, family concerns, issues at work, aches and pains from physical problems, discomfort caused by your choice of pillow or bed, or a myriad of other reasons.
Good quality sleep is crucial to maintaining good health. It allows your body to recharge and regenerate, and gives your mind the break it needs to stay focused through the next day.
Many people who experience problems sleeping will resort to sleeping pills, but research shows these do not provide the truly quality periods of deep sleep that we need, and anyone who’s used them will testify to how fuzzy they can make you feel in the morning.
Great Tips for Better Sleep
Doctors of chiropractic are trained in all aspects of creating wellness, and can offer advice to help the troubled sleeper kick the meds and enjoy a naturally-induced slumber that refreshes as it should. Here are a few tips to create a better environment for quality sleep:
- Exercise regularly, and preferably in the morning. Evening exercise can raise your heartbeat into a range that may prevent you settling down to sleep. Try to leave a 2 to 3 hour gap between finishing exercise and going to bed.
- Limit caffeine consumption later in the day and especially before bed. That means not just coffee, but caffeinated sodas and also tea. Counteract the effect of any such beverage during the day by drinking an equal amount of water.
- If you need water during the night, drink it at room temperature not cold, which can upset the digestion and therefore your sleep.
- Try not to eat dinner later than 6pm, again because this sets off the digestive functions which need to be settled for you to sleep well.
- Try to go to bed and wake up at the same times to program your system.
- Sleep in a cool room and as dark as possible. Any light, even through closed eyelids, triggers hormones to be produced that tell you to wake up.
Make sure you give yourself the best chance of sleep by choosing a good mattress and pillow.
Mattress Support
- The mattress should provide even support for the body and maintain the spine in its natural alignment. This is subjective for each person. To give an idea of whether it feels okay for you, it is recommended that you lie down on it in the store for 3 to 5 minutes. Any longer and you may be ejected for just being a hobo in search of a free lie-down. Support should be uniform from head to toe, with no unsupportive gaps.
- To firm up a soft mattress if you have back pain, put a board underneath it, but only until you feel better. Too-firm mattresses are not good.
- Flip your mattress, or rotate it head to toe every few months to prevent any part becoming permanently indented.
- When you start waking up feeling achy, that may be a sign you need a new mattress. Mattress life varies according to the quality of the build and how it is used.
- Your mattress may need changing sooner if you experience changes in your life that affect you physically: weight gain or loss or injuries, for example, or anything that affects the weight or the placement of weight on your mattress. Even a new partner!
- To soften up a too-hard mattress if you don’t want to splurge on a new one, there are memory-foam toppers available that will certainly help.
The Case for a Good Pillow
A bad pillow can negate all the good work performed every night by a good mattress. The aim of a pillow is to keep the cervical spine (the neck) aligned with the thoracic and lumbar sections of the spine (the chest and the lower back).
- As a guide, a pillow should be able to keep your head and neck level with your mid and lower spine when you are lying on your side. If you lie on your back, it should be able to keep your head and neck level with your upper back and spine. Any deviation from these that angles your head and neck wrongly means you need to find another pillow.
- Foam pillows are good so long as the material is firm enough to provide proper support and not squish away to nothing under your weight.
- You should not need to put your arm under your pillow to get it to the right height, nor bend it over on itself to double its thickness. Those are good indicators your pillow is wrong.
- Like a mattress, it is not a one-size-fits-all situation with pillows. Choose the one that is right for your shape.
Sleep Easy with Chiropractic Care
Your doctor of chiropractic can help with more than good advice. Even with the correct bedding, problems falling asleep due to back, neck or hip pain can occur when there are spinal problems. Chiropractors are trained to treat these problems and ensure that your spine is in a better state to allow you more peaceful rest.
For Your Health,
Dr. Robert Ringston