"Zzz." - Check out these hacks to relieve stress and optimize your sleep!

Friday: Mindfulness by Miles FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: Welcome to “Mindfulness by Miles!” I’m excited to share with you another tip that I find useful in my daily life. Every Friday, I talk about topics related to wealth, health, and our overall well-being. My hope is that you’ll also find these articles compelling and helpful in both your personal life and career. Ready to know more about today’s feature? Keep reading to learn how you can achieve optimum sleep and minimize the stressors in your life. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

"Zzz." - Check out these hacks to relieve stress and optimize your sleep! Quality sleep is one of the most important ways to improve our brain function, longevity, and overall performance. This means if we sleep better, we’ll likely see huge gains in different areas of our lives. On the contrary, poor sleep is one of the fastest ways to sabotage our body systems. In fact, just one night of low-quality sleep negatively impacts the brain—the effect is similar to when we drink alcoholic beverages. Furthermore, going a full night without sleep leads to mental performance drops! This shows how sleep is crucial and not getting enough of it has major health consequences. As someone who’s been in the workforce for over 3 decades now, I highly value getting enough sleep daily. I recognize the importance of this in my life because I’ve observed that when I get a good night’s sleep, I am able to function optimally the next day. However, if I’m not able to rest and sleep properly, the effects are drastic! I can’t focus well, I experience mood swings, and I feel too lazy to do anything. That’s why I make sure to keep my everyday life as stress-free as possible… or if there are inevitable stressors, I keep myself calm and handle the situation properly. This is because for me, stress plays a HUGE role in the quality of my sleep. Speaking of stress… Did you know this is one of the most common causes of low-quality sleep? According to an article from Medical News Today, stress adversely affects sleep quality and duration, and at the same time, insufficient sleep increases your stress level. This is a frustrating cycle that can significantly impact your overall health and well-being. Here’s how stress affects your sleep and vice versa: When you sleep, you enter into a deep recovery state. Your brain and body partially shut off so they can repair and replenish themselves for the next day. Sleep is also when you’re least aware of your environment and most vulnerable to threats. To relax into deep sleep, your sympathetic nervous system—the part of your body that influences cortisol (the stress hormone)—has to be turned off. Here’s the thing: When you’re chronically stressed, your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive. It’s on almost all the time, producing cortisol to keep you alert and ready to deal with possible threats. This is why chronic stress is one of the most common predictors of insomnia and overall poor sleep quality. Thankfully, there’s good news! You can break that cycle, get rid of stress, and improve your sleep with a few simple hacks: Meditation Meditation is a mind and body practice known for treating insomnia. It has several types, such as: Mindfulness Meditation - The process of observing thoughts, feelings, and emotions as they occur without judgment. A big part of this practice is focusing on the present moment and not allowing your mind to wander to other thoughts. Body Scan Meditation - The technique used to slowly concentrate on different parts of the body and notice any sensations or pains. This can either be systematic scanning, from head to toe, or a random scanning of various body parts. The goal is to let your attention be focused completely on your body. Guided Meditation - This is when you’re verbally guided through a meditative experience and encouraged to visualize a calming situation. There are lots of guided meditation apps available online. Exercise Aside from having its own health benefits, daytime exercise aids in relieving stress and helping you relax at night. Specifically, moderate to vigorous exercise is helpful as it decreases sleep onset or the time it takes for adults to fall asleep. Workouts and other physical activities also help alleviate daytime sleepiness and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is commonly attributed to obesity. Nighttime Routine Having a nighttime routine also helps in stress relief and in turn, better sleep. Below are some practices you might want to take into consideration: Creating a good sleep environment. Assess your bedroom for possible stressors. Make sure your mattress is comfortable, and your bedroom environment is dark and quiet as much as possible. Limit alcohol and caffeine consumption before bedtime. These substances can affect your ability to have undisturbed sleep. Additionally, excessive alcohol can affect how your body handles stress. Take a warm shower or bath. This not only helps you relax and de-stress but also lowers your body temperature, enabling you to fall asleep faster. Avoiding blue light exposure at least 30 minutes before bedtime. The light from electronic devices interferes with your body’s circadian rhythm. Sleep experts recommend you set these aside if you want to fall asleep at night. Practice journaling. Writing down your thoughts at the end of the day can help you relax. Always keep a journal beside your bed so you can note down any anxieties that may come up in the moments before sleeping, or create a to-do list for the following day. — I personally believe that if you want to sleep better, you have to control how you respond to various stressors so your “fight or flight” response system relaxes. Besides, stress doesn’t have to sabotage your sleep and make you weak! Other than the hacks above, your body has a built-in way to combat your “fight or flight” response. It’s called the parasympathetic nervous system, or the “rest and digest” part of your body. This is responsible for relaxing your mind and body at the physiological level. I hope you learned a lot from today’s topic! Take note: While you may not be able to control all the stressors in your life, you have the power to change how your body reacts to them. Over time, training yourself to handle stress properly will not only help you become better at functioning well but also enable you to get quality sleep. Happy Friday and advance happy weekend!     Follow us on LinkedIn.