You Can Sleep Well by Chris Idzikowski

Author:Chris Idzikowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: You Can Sleep Well: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
ISBN: 9781780288772
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2014-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

the pre-sleep stretch

EXERCISE SIX

Exercise need not be vigorous to be beneficial. A sedentary lifestyle can adversely affect our posture and we often find ourselves complaining of aching necks and stiff backs. As much of the tension of daily life is stored in your spine, a pre-sleep exercise that stretches this area can help to relieve any tightness there, and so help you to fall asleep more easily and to avoid waking up during the night, or in the morning, with muscular pain.

1. Kneel, with the tops of your feet flat on the floor, and sit back on your heels. Bend forward, stretching your arms out in front of you and “folding” your upper body over your thighs until your forehead touches the floor. Swing your arms round so that they lie beside your body, the palms of your hands facing upwards. Breathe deeply and slowly for one minute.

2. Move up onto all fours, with your hands at shoulders’ width apart and your knees directly beneath your hips. Inhale, lift your head up and at the same time push your bottom outward, dipping your back in a catlike stretch. Exhale and breathe rhythmically, holding the position for approximately 30 seconds.

3. Inhale, and lower your head as if to look between your legs. As you exhale, tuck your chin into your chest. Arch your back upward and tuck in your bottom. Breathing rhythmically, stay in this position for approximately 30 seconds.

4. Repeat the Step 1 position; breathe deeply and slowly for one minute.

Physical exercise interacts with sleep by affecting the body’s metabolic rate and temperature in much the same way as diet (see pp.74–7). The various metabolic and hormonal changes associated with vigorous exercise are stimulating and boost the body’s temperature. Sleep comes more easily when our temperature is decreasing and, if we wish to use exercise to enhance our sleep, it makes sense to finish any strenuous workouts by late afternoon. Early research showed that walking on a treadmill during the day promoted sleep that night, but only if undertaken at least five or six hours before going to bed. The state of relaxation we experience after exercising also helps us to obtain our full quota of deep sleep (see pp.40–1).

So how much exercise do we need to do to improve our sleep? It is probably less than you think – three sessions of twenty minutes each per week will do the trick, provided that you do aerobic exercise, which boosts your oxygen consumption, improves your breathing and strengthens your heart and circulation – all benefits to your health that will help you sleep better.

The most important thing to remember is that any exercise regime will help to improve your sleep, as long as during exercise you hit your heart rate “target zone”. To find out what this is, subtract your age from 220 to get the advised maximum exercising heart rate for someone of your age. Then calculate 60 and 75 per cent of this figure, which gives the lower and upper limits of the target range for your heart rate during exercise.

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