Consistency Counts

Sleep, perhaps more than any other part of life, depends on the development of routine. You can’t improve the quality and duration of your sleep without getting good habits into place first.

The first habit I developed many years ago was to avoid caffeine after my morning cups of tea. When I was travelling to work every day I used to have a large mug of caffeinated tea and then switch straight to Lemon and Ginger or similar. That was actually something I learnt in Japan. During my first term there I had a number of issues with my voice in the classes and one of my colleagues said that he noticed me having black tea with milk. He told me that the milk coated the vocal chords making them more prone to failing in the lessons. I was a little sceptical but I agreed to switch to green tea for the rest of the term as a trial. I never switched back.

My second habit, and one I came to as a result of lack of money was to avoid alcohol in the evening and particularly before bed. Prior to the family budget being squeezed I would often have a beer in the evening and the occasional, semi-regular if I was really stressed, nightcap. When it became clear that it was either my alcohol or sports and dance clubs, and the occasional day out, for the children there was no contest of course. I gave up alcohol for eight years entirely and have never gone back to it in any meaningful way. My quality of sleep gradually improved and the only time I have alcohol before bed is when I have a really sore throat and I have a hot toddy! My grandmother, who signed the pledge as a teenager, vowing to give up alcohol, only had the occasional brandy which she always described as ‘purely medicinal’, a phrase I have half humourously adopted.

My third habit, developed much more recently, has been to do a meditation on the Calm App. I listen to the Daily Jay with Jay Shetty nearly every night. Sometimes I listen to the whole thing but on many occasions I am asleep almost straight after the three deep breaths! Allied to this I try to avoid my phone in the last couple of hours before bed but that is very much a work in progress. Let’s just say that I am slowly getting better at it! I swear by the Calm App and I really encourage you to try it. If you are interested I can give you a link for a free trial so let me know in the comments if you want to take me up on that.

So, how is my sleep now? It’s a work in progress, sometimes very good, occasionally pretty bad, but overall there is a clear improvement and it comes from the approaches I have outlined above.