Developing healthy sleeping habits is just as important as your exercising and eating.
Sleep is when the body (and mind) repairs and rebuilds; taking on the benefits from your exercise. Sleep is when the body recharges. So more (and better quality) sleep equals better recovery from exercise, so we can maintain a consistent exercise programme and reap the rewards from each workout. Poor sleep has also been linked to obesity, heart disease, strokes, cancer and dementia. So isn't it time you took it seriously?
On average adults need between 7-9 hours sleep every night. If you're not getting this (or are at the bottom end of that range), here's a simple way to up your sleep and get an extra night of it each month!
Just aim to get 30mins extra sleep on 4 nights of the week. To achieve this perhaps you could:
reduce caffeine intake overall and cut out entirely after 3pm
eat earlier in the evening to allow your digestive system to do its job
drink less liquids a couple of hours before bedtime to avoid a bathroom visit mid-sleep
prep what you need for the morning the night before and set your alarm a little later
binge-watch one less episode on Netflix (other On Demand services are available)
actually set an alarm to remind you to go to bed
leave your phone in another room, do not, I repeat, do not take it to bed!
refrain from hitting the snooze button in the morning, rather set the alarm for when you need to get up…and get up