You may be used to us preaching constantly about healthy sleep habits. We’ve barraged you with advice, screaming at the top of our lungs: “Manage your stress!”, “Eat the right foods!”, “Get regular exercise!”, “Eliminate light in the bedroom!”. It gets pretty annoying, we know. Our Dream Water articles are not meant to lecture you into sleepy time submission, but rather to help you rid your life of pesky sleepless nights while helping you to be the healthiest person you can be. In saying this, we have one more very important piece of advice: Make a sleep schedule, and stick to it!
As if there weren’t enough research to prove the benefits of a regular routine or schedule and it’s impact on healthy sleep habits, yet another study emerges to prove the same. From the journal Sleep, we find the results of a great study performed on residents of an Israeli retirement community whose mean age was 75. Considering this age produces some of the most difficult to treat forms of sleepless nights due to phsycial ailments and the biological changes that come with aging, this group of participants were perfect candidates for proving that regular sleep routines really are quite powerful in treating and preventing sleep problems.
The main take away from this study? Your body needs a routine. Though it’s flesh and blood, your body is somewhat of a machine with many intricate layers and parts that work in a dynamic fashion all based on timing, schedules and in essence, systematic routine. It makes perfect sense that the routine of your daily life can have such an effect on your internal system; it’s simple cause and effect. Routine is actually comforting to your body.
The impact of a disrupted routine can be felt dramatically when you travel across time zones. Have you ever experienced jet lag that caused disruption in your sleep patterns, energy levels and even digestive functioning? The impact of a disrupted routine can cause our bodies to start working erratically, as your horomone levels and biological processes become confused. Imagine your disrupted internal workings like that of a person who spins around in circles for one minute. When you stop spinning, you become disoriented and may lose your balance. This is essentially what happens to your body when routine is not present.
Take control of you health, and your natural sleep patterns, by introducing and maintaining a sleep schedule. The following sleep routine rules will help you maintain a healthy life balance, while allowing you a better and more reliable night of sleep:
- Go to bed at the same time every night. Get out of bed the same time every morning. Be sure to schedule this so that you clock in at least 7-8 hours of sleep.
- Do not change your schedule on the weekends. As tempting as it may be to sleep in a bit on your lazy Saturdays, this disturbance in your routine may throw you off track.