The following advice highlights strategies for creating a better sleep environment that will provide you with the best chances for a full and rejuvenating night's sleep.
Your bedroom should be quiet and relaxing. Unwelcome noise or light, an uncomfortable or worn-out mattress and foundation, or a room that's too warm or too cool can prevent you from getting the sleep you need. There's no reason to settle for anything less than perfect sleep. Make Your Bedroom a Sleep Sanctuary.
Is your bedroom conducive to a good night's sleep?
These four factors can make a difference:
- Mattress and Foundation. Be sure your mattress and foundation
meet your needs for both comfort and support. If you sleep with a
partner, your mattress should also allow you both enough space to
move easily.
- Light. Light is one of the body's most powerful time cues. The
rising sun can wake up the brain long before the alarm goes off. A
dark room is the most conducive for sleep – day or night.
- Noise. Sudden, loud noises from inside or outside the home can
disrupt sleep. Steady, low sounds, such as the whir of a fan or air
conditioner, are soothing because they help block out distracting
noises.
- • Temperature. The ideal bedroom temperature is 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit (16 to 18 degrees Celsius). A room that's too warm or too cool can disrupt comfortable sleep.
Source: The Better Sleep Council
More tips from www.SpineCareFoundation.org
When you have slept well, you bound out of bed in the morning full of vim, vigour and vitality. It is now known that the only time your brain is able to build up its energy stores is during sleep. Each and every day your brain uses close on 20 percent of your total energy expenditure. Quite a lot for such a little organ. This energy must be replenished during sleep or we run out of steam the next day. Without sleep we do not function well - our senses are dulled, our energy drains, our physical stamina is less and our coping mechanisms are depleted. Sleep is a basic need that must be met for us to survive. We share this fundamental need with all other creatures large and small. They, too, need to have the energy to play, to hunt, to see, to smell, to hear and so on. They, too, need to sleep.
The brain is the computer that drives all the body’s functions – thinking, seeing, hearing, speaking, smelling and talking to name but a few. All these activities are extremely complicated – they require lots of brain power. Even on a quiet day, one with little actual physical exertion, you need lots of energy to run your very personal computer (brain). This explains why a study day, spent entirely at a desk, can leave you quite exhausted. At the day’s end you may feel as if you have run a marathon. Babies, too, must sleep. Have you ever picked up a baby who is sleeping soundly? He or she will feel very, very heavy – the muscles are so relaxed they are no longer “holding” any of their own weight. This is when their body replenishes the energy stores – the energy they need to grow, to feed, to cry, to move and especially to learn.
Have you noticed when adults are asleep their muscles relax, too. During sleep muscle tone drops and the body feels floppy. Not only is sleep a time when we store energy, it is also many hours in a day when we conserve energy.
Sleep also has a calming effect on pain. Much of our pain, especially chronic back pain, comes from sore, tense muscles. As these muscles relax during sleep, the pain may ease. As we build up our energy stores overnight, we build up our ability to “cope” with pain. It is very hard to deal with chronic pain, especially back or neck pain, if you are constantly tired and your energy stores depleted. Part of the medical management for chronic pain may be to prescribe medication to help you sleep.
To accept the importance of a good night’s sleep, one must also accept the need to have everything “just right” to encourage a good sleep. This is why choosing a good bed and an appropriate pillow are so, so important. Because most of us spend about a third of our life in bed it makes good sense to take the time to choose wisely.
TIPS TO HELP YOU SELECT A BED:
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NEVER buy a bed from a catalogue.•
NEVER buy a bed simply because a friend recommends it – what a friend or relative finds comfortable may not suit you and your body shape.•
NEVER assume the most expensive bed on the market is the best one for you.•
NEVER take on face value any advertising campaign on beds. ALWAYS be wary of “endorsed” or “recommended” products. Remember the ethics of advertising/marketing are essentially uncontrolled. Unfortunately, unsubstantiated claims abound and many consumers have been disappointed when a bed did not meet their inflated expectations.•
ALWAYS “try before you buy” ie, visit the store yourself - lie on the available beds. Couples who share a bed should take the time to visit the shop together – take your shoes off and hop on the bed together. In truth, there is not much difference between the various inner spring mattresses available, but by trying them out you will be able to decide which is best for you, or for the two of you.•
REMEMBER a bed should support all body contours and your contours are different to anyone else. No two people have the same shape. We all have lumps and bumps in different places; we all have bony points and fat pads in different places. Some of us have sensitive hips, others touchy backs or necks.A “good” mattress is the mattress which suits you best – not the lady down the road or the next door neighbor. A “good” mattress will distribute your weight evenly, avoiding concentration of pressure onto your sensitive points. Just as a young scout is taught to dig a hole to relieve pressure on his hip when sleeping on the ground your mattress, too, should not exert pressure on your bony points. As most of us sleep on our side, this is particularly important in the hip area.
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Water beds suit some people, but not others. For people with marked spinal curvatures, water beds may be comfortable. If contemplating a water bed purchase, see if you can spend a night in a motel sleeping on one. This will be a cheap experiment for then you should know whether or not it suits your needs.Remember some older or disabled people may find it difficult to get in and out of this type of bed.
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The choice of a suitable pillow is also important for restful sleep. Most people are comfortable with one rather than two, pillows supporting their neck – this will avoid putting the neck in an unusual position. An abundance of “special” pillows are available – some with contours, some with down or wool, some with synthetic fibres. As with mattresses, it pays to shop around before selecting a pillow. All the criteria we have discussed for choosing a bed apply equally to pillows. “Select wisely”, “try before you buy”, “no two people are the same”, etc. Remember, if you suffer neck ache make sure the nape of your neck is well supported by your pillow or a rolled towel.•
If you have back or neck pain it is especially important to choose a mattress which suits your needs.The most common cause of spinal pain in adults is arthritis due to “wear and tear” (also called spondylosis). Waking with pain in the morning and stiffness can be a signal that your bed doesn’t suit your needs. Sleeping in unnatural, awkward positions puts extra strain on arthritic spines and may lead to a worsening of symptoms. The wrong bed may encourage you to adopt poor sleeping positions – the wrong bed may lead to a restless sleep – restless sleep leads to less coping – less coping leads to more pain. The right bed will make all the difference to a restful sleep.
To summarize, choosing a suitable bed is really important, simply because a
good, restful sleep is
important for everyone – no bones about it. Without a good night’s sleep our
brains run out of steam and our aches and pains seem worse.
Human beings simply don’t function well without sleep.