I have always been one of those people that really needs their sleep.
As a young child, my mother used to call me ‘Crabby Craig’ if I was looking a bit tired and starting to get grumpy!
As an adult, I have found it imperative to get a good night’s sleep, particularly after the daily stresses of work and intense training at the gym.
As we all know, if you can get into that deep REM sleep and maintain it for several hours, then your chances of producing that wonderful growth hormone from the pituitary gland are enhanced markedly.
This in turn allows the body to recover from all manner of demands that we place on it, so not surprisingly it is sometimes coined the ‘Fountain of Youth’.
Now, to get into the aforementioned REM sleep, we need to produce melatonin from our hypothalamus via the pineal gland. For this to occur it is important that we try and hit the hay before midnight, avoid using mobile phones to close to bedtime and obviously minimise the consumption of stimulants like caffeine after approximately 4pm.
One key ingredient to sound sleep that is often overlooked is the importance of making sure your bedroom is nice and dark.
For years I have found that my body seems to naturally respond to the sun rising, so as the light filters through my blinds at around 4-5pm (in Summer), I find that I not only start to wake up but, annoyingly, find it very hard to drift back off to sleep for that extra hour or two.
Recently, when travelling to the USA for a holiday, I was given an eye mask and a few other bits and pieces from a Virgin International flight.
For some reason I decided to hang on to this eye mask and ended up trialling it as a bit of a fun experiment when I got back to Oz!
Well, to my surprise, I found that the complete blackout you get when covering your eyes really did get me back off to sleep VERY quickly!!
That extra couple of hours of deep sleep really makes a difference in terms of how rested you feel when you finally get up to tackle the day’s events that lie ahead of you!
OK ok ok, this may sound a bit silly, but mark my words, it works a treat and is definitely worth a shot!!
PS: To avoid giant crease marks on your face, I purchased an eye mask made from silk via E-Bay for a measly $13 with free delivery!!
http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/otherendo/pineal.html
Bodychisel by Craig. 