Last week, Shaw shared 2 quick exercises to boost mobility and help correct slouched posture.
Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, talks about how sleep can affect emotional stress, plus 3 tips for better sleep.
Last week, Shaw shared 2 quick exercises to boost mobility and help correct slouched posture.
This week, Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, healthspan coach and host of the Healthspan Digest podcast, is sharing 3 tips for better sleep. As Shaw explains, sleep is important not only for physical recovery but also for emotional stability, as feeling stressed can be linked to not getting enough sleep.
Below is a partial transcript, lightly edited for clarity:
Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS: Hey, this is Aaron Shaw with a Wellness Tip of the Week. I want to talk about something that most people on the vet health team are not getting enough of—that is sleep. Sleep is where the magic happens. Sleep is where our body recovers from the wear and tear of day-to-day life. So, if you find yourself a little crabby, maybe a little foggy-headed, maybe not making the sharpest decisions, and even feeling stressed, oftentimes, it's not actually the stress that's the problem; it’s that you're underslept.
Sleep is where our nervous system can recover from the wear and tear of day-to-day life. When you don't get [enough] REM [rapid eye movement] sleep...what suffers is part of our brain called the amygdala. This is the part of the brain that really processes the emotional stress [and] emotional demands of day-to-day life and preps us for tomorrow's demanding life that we have.
So, it's not a personality flaw if you're feeling on edge and not sleeping well; it's just neurobiology. It's something that we all have to deal with. So, I want to give you 3 tips that you can do that will help [to] maybe just get you a little bit better sleep.
Tip 1: At least 30 minutes—maybe even 60 minutes—before you go to bed at night, have a technology cutoff time. Set that timer where, after a certain point—an hour before you go to bed—you have no screen time. No phones, no computers, and even no TV [and] no Netflix. Resist; you can do it. And what that will help you do is get some of that light shining in your eyes out of your face and help you be prepared for sleep quicker.