So one of the things that you might not know as a Spokane holistic coach and as a Spokane health coach is that I also work with sleep coaching. I am a certified sleep coach, I got this through the online sleep coach Academy. And sleep is really, really important for your health. I know that exercise and nutrition gets the big gets the big talk points, but the reality is sleep is going to be as beneficial to your health, if not more. So. The reality is, ideally, we should be sleeping eight hours a day, that’s 1/3 of the day, you’re not going to be eating for eight hours a day, you’re not going to be exercising for eight hours a day, there is so much more time that we’re going to spend sleeping, because sleep affects every single biological function in your body.
Unfortunately, despite how important sleep is over 80% of Americans complain about sleep issues, whether it’s not sleeping long enough, or not sleeping well enough and waking up feeling tired. Most Americans struggle with sleep. But there is one really easy trick and tip that I can give you that can dramatically improve the quality of your sleep right now. Now, in the REBEL oath, the framework that guides healthy decision making in our coaching company is at the center break free from common standards. When we look at common standards around sleep, what we see is that most people,they don’t really sleep that well, because they’re not giving themselves an opportunity to sleep well. They’re not giving themselves an opportunity or a chance to sleep well, because they’re doing what we do what we call lights out mentality.
Now, as a Spokane Health Coach I understand throughout the day, you’re going to gather some stress, and there’s going to be a need to decompress at the end. And part of life should have some me time. There is this want to decompress. And that’s fine. That’s very true. That’s very valid, and you should have that decompress time. The way that most people decompress though, is by sitting on the couch watching whatever is the newest series on Netflix, or in my case, whatever the newest Disney plus show is about Marvel superheroes. But anyway, people will sit on the couch until they feel like they’re about to pass out. And then they go walk over their bed and attempt to fall asleep. That’s what I call lights out mentality. You go from you go from 100 you you’re going from from awake, stimulated to turn off the lights and fall asleep. Lights out, go to bed, not the way it’s going to work.
We do a good job with children. Actually, most parents do a really good job with children, hey, bedtimes in an hour. Let’s go take a shower, let’s brush the teeth, wash the face read the bedtime story. There’s a routine, there’s a transition, we’re preparing the kid to go to sleep. And then as an adult, we do zero preparation to go to sleep ourselves. And that’s a damn shame. Because that is the number one tip that I can give someone to improve the quality of their sleep. We need to have a transition into sleep we need to have preparation to go to sleep.
So what I often recommend with my clients when we’re working with health coaching is to create a routine about 30 to 90 minutes before their anticipated pillow time. That is ideally screen free. So that is low stimulation in that it’s relaxing. One of the most common recommendations is reading. I do however have one client that prefers to do like Sudoku puzzles, because it’s fairly thoughtless and it leaves her tired afterwards. It leaves her feeling a little spent and if she falls asleep easier because her brain is shut off and turned off and done. But whatever routine it is that for you right I’ve had clients that will take a warm bath with some aroma therapies. My sister love her she does yoga before bed just that easy routine to relax and transition into sleeping mode. I’ve had people do meditations. I don’t care what your routine is. I don’t care what your transition practice is.
As a Spokane health coach, I just want you to do what’s best for yourself. And I do want to laminate that. Screens TV decompression is not what’s best for yourself, we know that the lights, the flashing lights will trigger the parasympathetic nervous system gets you in that fight or flight mode, which is the exact opposite of the rest and digest mode that you want to be in to sleep. Right. So I know, I know, people like falling asleep to the TV, but as dumb don’t do that. So ultimately, as a Spokane health coach, I do want you to have better sleep. And the number one step that you can take to get better sleep is by having a transition period, a routine that prepares you for sleep. This is something I also recommended with my shift work clients. I’ve had a lot of clients that did overnight shifts in the ICU as nurses.
And so their sleep schedules were very sporadic, their circadian rhythms were constantly thrown off. But having a solid 60 minute pre sleep routine can transition the body and prepare the body to fall asleep. Whether that is at consistent 9pm times, or if it’s sometimes 9pm, sometimes 9am. Right. That routine is a transition that signals to the brain conditions the brain to go into a sleep mode, right? So I want you to have a very consistent bedtime routine just like we do with kids. Right? Bedtime in an hour time to get ready for bed. Same with your kids. Same with you. It’s one of the biggest tips I can give as a health coach to improve the quality of sleep with people
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