10/12/2025
HANDS UP IF YOU STRUGGLE TO SLEEP?
I’ve just got home from a free lecturer held by University of Kent University of Greenwich and University of Canterbury on The 12 days of Christmas balance.
I really wanted to go because we are seeing more and more clients telling us that they struggle to get to sleep, stay asleep and many don’t feel rested when they wake in the morning!
We’ve always been able to support people on a subconscious level to help get their mind to calm and see the importance of sleep.
However tonight, I’ve been learning about the science around sleep and our bodies and learnt strategies to achieveing healthy sleep over the festive period.
One of the key takeaways for me was how we treat sleep as a problem that we need to fix and when we do this we increase our cortisol level which in turn makes our body less ready to sleep. Instead of this we need to induce higher levels of melatonin which relax us and prepare us for sleep.
Most of us understand the principals of good sleep hygiene, such as not using technology before bed, calming our minds with meditation, not eating too late. But how many of us actually understand the science behind how these things affect our bodies on a more scientific level?
AND even more importantly, how what we do with our whole day, not just the two hours prior to sleeping, affects our ability to fall asleep and get a good nights restorative sleep.
Fun fact: if you are someone who likes to have a drink before bed to ‘help you sleep’, you’re actually using the alcohol as a sedative to put you to sleep.
Not solving the problem of why you can’t sleep or creating a healthy sleep circadian rhythm.
Instead what happens is it actually stops your liver from doing the important job it should be doing every night as instead it then has to focus on processing the alcohol in your system.
If you’ve been struggling with sleep there are lots of ways we can support you at The Growth Place to get your mind and body in a better place so you get a better nights rest every night. Pop us a message if you want to get booked in.
