Your behaviors during the day, and especially before bedtime, can have a major impact on your sleep. They can promote healthy sleep or contribute to sleeplessness. Your daily routines – what you eat and drink, the medications you take, how you schedule your days and how you choose to spend your evenings – can significantly impact your quality of sleep.
The term “sleep hygiene” refers to a series of healthy sleep habits that can improve your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. These habits can help improve your sleep health. If you have difficulty sleeping or want to improve your sleep, try following these healthy sleep habits. Talk to your medical provider if your sleep problem persists.
• Be consistent. Go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning, including on the weekends.
• Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature.
• Remove electronic devices, such as TVs, computers, and smart phones, from the bedroom.
• Avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime.
• Reduce your fluid intake before bedtime.
• Get some exercise. Being physically active during the day can help you fall asleep more easily at night.
Regional West Sleep Diagnostic Center states, “Getting the right amount of sleep helps in many aspects of your life, some of which you wouldn’t think about. It is widely known that sleep helps with daily energy and alertness. It also helps with mental and physical health, to reduce serious health risks such as heart disease, diabetes, and depression. It also helps with appetite and weight control.”
The Center added, “One of the best ways to achieve the right amount of sleep, which most providers suggest 7 ½ to 9 hours a night, is to practice sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene or good sleep habits could be as simple as setting a bedtime and wakeup routine, going to bed at the same time and waking around the same time, even on weekends or days off. This is beneficial from early childhood to adulthood by promoting healthy sleep. Taking 30 minutes before your normal bedtime to unwind and unplug from electronic devices is also helpful for your body to produce its own melatonin for restful sleep.”
Important tips for employers:
• Raise awareness among workers about the health and safety risks associated with the time change and emphasize the need for obtaining adequate sleep.
• Consider reducing any critical or physically/mentally demanding tasks to allow workers time to adjust to the time change, since it can take one week for the body to adapt.
It is important and to the employers benefit to provide education and awareness around sleep hygiene. Fatigue has a massive economic impact costing employers billions of dollars a year. It’s estimated that reductions in productivity, motivation, and health care costs related to fatigue cost individual employers around $1,967 annually per employee. When these losses in productivity are added up, fatigue at work costs U.S. companies around $136.4 billion dollars a year.
Remember, even a few slight adjustments can, in some cases, mean the difference between sound sleep and a restless night.
For additional information about worksite wellness, visit www.pphd.org/pwwc.html or call Nicole Berosek at 308-279-3496
The Panhandle Worksite Wellness Council is proudly part of Panhandle Public Health District. The Council specializes in supporting employers in the Panhandle region. We recognize that many employers support a diverse and remote workforce and offer innovative ways to overcome the challenge of working with a virtual team. We understand that many of our employers do not have full-time wellness resources and work to provide resources and training to make running a worksite wellness program as easy as possible.
Panhandle Public Health District is working together to improve the health, safety and quality of life for all who live, learn, work and play in the Panhandle. Our vision is that we are a healthier and safer Panhandle community.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/sleep_hygiene.html; https://sleepeducation.org/healthy-sleep/healthy-sleep-habits/; Here Comes the Sun! Tips to
Adapt to Daylight Saving Time | Blogs | CDC; Sleep & Job Performance: Can Sleep Deprivation Hurt Your Work? | Sleep Foundation