The Importance of Downtime Over Screen Time

Do you wake up feeling exhausted and go to bed with your head racing wide awake?

According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, sleep plays a critical role in our physical and mental wellbeing. During sleep your body is working to support healthy brain function and healing and repairing heart and blood vessels.

Studies have shown that not getting enough sleep can impact your ability to solve problems, make decisions, control your emotions and behaviour and cope with change. Lack of sleep has also been linked to depression and risk-taking behaviour.

In the way that your mind and gut are connected,  sleep supports both are physical and mental health and is critical in optimising your overall wellbeing.

Here are a few tips and tricks to wind down and get the most rest to prepare your mind and body for the day ahead.

1. Manage your screen time

As mentioned in our previous blog our bodies can be very sensitive to light,  as our bodies have naturally been attuned over generations to rise and sleep with the sun. In this way artificial light like our laptops and phones create a blue light that triggers an alert response from our bodies. In this way blue light blockers as the name suggests restrict the amount of blue light that you receive.  You can also change the settings on your Apple devices to emit more red light in the evenings. We recommend turning off all devices an hour before bed allowing you time to switch off from the chaos of the digital world and be calm and collected for rest.

2. Drinking Bone Broth before bed

Bone Broth is filled with a lot of nutrients like glycine and magnesium, which research has shown have a calming and relaxing effect on the body and can promote a well rested sleep. Try a mug of Bone Broth after meals to help aid digestion and lower stress and

3. Meditation

Meditation can be helpful trick to shut down stressful thoughts and bring your attention back to the body. This in turn can help you slow down your mind to allow for rest. Start with a 5-10 minute meditation before bed, there are a lot of free videos on youtube and Headspace is a great application that offers free sessions

4. Bathing in Epsom salts

When Epsom salt is dissolved in a bath, the magnesium can be absorbed through the skin to help replenish magnesium levels in the body. Magnesium is shown to help promote a feeling of calm and relaxation, increase energy and reduce irritability. Epson bath salts can even be bought on Amazon. Try having an Epsom salt bath before bed to ease stress and promote relaxation before sleep.