If you feel like your energy levels have depleted by the afternoon, you struggle to fall asleep as your head hits the pillow, or experience general exhaustion, we suggest going back to basics and reassessing your sleep routine. The connection between great overall health and a good night’s sleep is evident but – in today’s world, with illuminated devices glued to our fingertips, along with highly caffeinated drinks and food at our disposal – our routines are easily compromised.
Kelli Clifton chats to pulmonologist and sleep specialist Dr Luke Krige about all things regarding sleep wellness. He is also the founder and director of Gauteng and Eastern Cape-based sleep clinic SA Sleep Lab, which has been running for the past 30 years.
The best recipe for a good night’s sleep
Stick to a routine: Set a time to go to bed and wake up each day. Stick to it. It’s the best way to train your body to get a good night’s rest.
Temperature: The temperature of your bedroom needs to be moderate. Anything between 18–20 degrees Celsius is suitable. Extremely warm conditions will leave the body feeling restless, resulting in difficultly falling asleep or maintaining it. If anything, it’s better to sleep in a cold room, as the body drops to its core temperature, resulting in the release of melatonin (sleep hormone) and prevention of cortisol (stress hormone) production.
Limited blue light: Blue light from smartphones or tablets fool our brains into thinking it’s daytime. Our bodies then stop producing melatonin, making it more challenging to fall asleep naturally.
Peace and quiet: Sleeping areas should be quiet and not exposed to loud music or noise from roads, which have ambulances or police vehicles.
Comfort: A comfortable bed is key. Steer towards a firmer mattress instead of a softer one. This will be better for your back, keeping your spine aligned during the night.
Food for thought
Eating and drinking before bedtime has a direct effect on your sleep. “It’s advisable not to sleep after a large meal as this may disturb your sleep pattern,” says Dr Krige. “However, the converse also applies in that you should not be hungry during the night, as this also disrupts a good sleeping pattern. Avoid drinks containing caffeine. They are detrimental to sleep. Coffee should not be taken for at least six hours prior to going to sleep, as the caffeine takes a long time to be metabolised. Remember, tea contains about 80% of the caffeine compared to coffee. Soothing drinks like warm milk and honey have the ability to make some sleep easily. Alcohol may initially relax you, but also has detrimental effects on a restful sleep.”
Counting down the hours
The ideal number of hours of sleep you should be aiming for is 7–8 per night. “Around 5–6 hours and below will affect your daytime performance adversely,” says Dr Krige. “Anything above 10–11 hours should be investigated by a sleep specialist. Chat to a sleep professional if you’re experiencing minimal hours too, in order to rectify the situation.”
Tip: Catch up for lost hours of sleep by going to bed earlier the following night. Your body generally dictates the amount of sleep catch-up it requires by making you feel more tired, naturally making you sleep longer after a “bad” night. It should take 10–15 minutes to fall asleep.
Could you have a sleep disorder?
The main sleep disorder is insomnia, which affects between 30–40% of the population at one time or another during their lives. There are three types of insomnia:
- Inability to fall asleep
- Inability to maintain sleep
- Early morning awakening
Each of these usually has a specific cause and is treated differently. A close second is obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), thought to affect up to 25% of the South African adult population. This is where the throat collapses at night and the patient basically “suffocates” and then has to breathe adequately.
How to treat it
The best form of treatment for insomnia is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The cognitive part is a psychological approach to help the patient understand the problem of insomnia and how it should be addressed and treated. The behavioural part of CBT is to improve sleep hygiene – in other words, your sleep routine. There are other methods of treatment, known as sleep restriction therapy and stimulus control therapy, which are highly effective and should be administered by sleep specialists. CBT is more effective than sleep medication and should be the initial form of therapy.
For OSA, the most successful and best form of therapy is to use constant positive airway pressure (CPAP). It involves wearing a small mask over the nose, which provides increased airway pressure (aka an air splint) that stops the airway from collapsing and takes away the sleep apnoea when it’s used.
Surgery is very rarely indicated, unless there is clear nasal obstruction. The use of mandibular advancement devices (MAD) may be considered for milder forms of sleep apnoea, although effectiveness and compliance with these devices vary.
Sleep apnoea is a hereditary condition that cannot be cured, as we cannot change our genes, but it can be treated. Men start to develop sleep apnoea at an earlier age, while women catch up dramatically when they start menopause.
Sleep myths
“The most common and harmful misconception is that sleep is a waste of good time and that you should be doing something more ‘productive’. Research shows us that sleep is critical to mental and physical well-being. It gives the body time to recuperate and regenerate, and is critical to the health of your heart, immune system, weight, diabetes, and brain function,” says Dr Krige.
Sleep improves your productivity, as well as your originality in thought processes. Recent research has further confirmed that the metabolic toxins produced by the brain through use, are “washed out” during the sleeping process, and insufficient sleep, has a significant correlation with cognitive degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
In conclusion
Sleep wellness is a variety of things. It’s about feeling fresh and regenerated once you wake up, experiencing no drowsiness during the day while being alert. Your cognitive functions, as well as your executive functions, should be performing at optimal levels.
Here’s to many blissful nights ahead!
The SA Sleep Lab | Tel: +27 87 087 7232 | Website: www.pesleeplab.co.za
Kelli’s no stranger to the beauty biz, with this being her thirteenth year in the industry. She’s got over 100 issues of FAIRLADY Magazine under her belt, where she worked her way up from Beauty Intern to Beauty Editor. She had two loves – beauty styling, along with beauty writing but the main reason for her putting pen to paper each issue was the community she built – full of fellow beauty enthusiasts, sharing everything from their favourite fragrances to their skincare woes. Since leaving FAIRLADY in 2018 to pursue her own business of beauty content creation, consulting, social media management and more, she’s had the honour of working with both local and international brands, creating successful, personalised workshops in the makeup, skincare and fragrance space. She currently manages the marketing of some of SA’s most loved beauty brands and freelances for glossy Modern Beauty, Edgars Beauty Hub and Benefits Magazine. And now, she gets to add Aesthetic Appointment to her proud list of accomplishments.
- Kelli Cliftonhttps://www.aestheticappointment.co.za/author/kelli-clifton
- Kelli Cliftonhttps://www.aestheticappointment.co.za/author/kelli-clifton
- Kelli Cliftonhttps://www.aestheticappointment.co.za/author/kelli-clifton
- Kelli Cliftonhttps://www.aestheticappointment.co.za/author/kelli-clifton
