Health

Do You Even Sleep Bro? 3 Steps To Sleep Better

Do You Even Sleep Bro? 3 Steps To Sleep Better

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As a hard-working employee or entrepreneur how many times do you wonder if sleep is a luxury you just can’t afford?

Actually, sleep isn’t a luxury but a necessity. Lack of sleep can affect your health by increasing your risk of heart diseases and heart attack, high blood pressure and diabetes. Sleep deprivation also negatively affects your alertness, concentration and problem solving.

These are problems that none of us want, here are a few steps I’ve started taking to sleep better:

1) Turn Phone Notifications Off

Even after the workday is done, many of us are still connected to work via electronic devices and doing small work-related tasks into the night. After moving to the UK, this was more apparent as messages from the US and Caribbean time zones could be received mere hours before bedtime. To reclaim your time, either turn your device notifications off or set the device to only allow notifications during your awake hours. I like to set mine to a 12-hour period with enough time before sleep and after sleep in the morning to have a buffer.

2) Stop Working So Late

Unless you find your most productive hours are during the night, not pushing yourself to work late into the night could aid in a more restful sleep. Instead of trying to force tasks that would take you less time while alert, use your last couple hours of awareness to relax your mind. Having an alert mind right before sleep will only prolong the length of time it takes to drift into sleep.

3) Avoid Devices or Blue Light

The light emitted by the sun, lights or devices can affect our sleeping patterns. Many of our electronic devices produce ‘blue light’, which encourages us to be more alert. Retreating from your device before sleep would remove this effect and allow your body to relax enough for a better sleep. However, for those of you who are like me and still use devices late, I’d suggest software like f.lux, which changes your device screen colour to match the natural light of that time of day, enabling your body to naturally adjust into the sleep phase.

Is lack of sleep something that you’re concerned about?

Would you like to track your sleeping patterns with your mobile phone?

Source(s): WebMD, Entrepreneur,

Sitting is Bad?

Sitting Down Too Much? I Know I Have.

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If you’ve been on the Internet or near any media for the past year, it has increasingly been reported that sitting is bad for your health. Reports from the NHS, The Guardian to CNN describe why sitting for long periods is unhealthy and puts one at an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

A sedentary lifestyle puts one at risk for all sorts of health problems, but nothing starts to hit hime until you’ve experienced it. Before moving to the UK, I worked from home where I was able to take frequent breaks from sitting at the PC or move from location to location within the house to lessen the effects of working life sedentary.

Eventually my team mates at MediRevu and I decided to move to a standing desk format as a small but potentially life-saving action against sitting for long periods.

This practice however changed at university. My course has some teaching weeks that require being seated for 6+ hours with 2-3 breaks during the period for a 5-day week. I didn’t think much of it until it was a repeated process for 2 months, and my body started feeling like I came off 3 back-to-back Christmas time binges.

Here we are now at Easter break. The standing workplace is back in operation and the process to be more active begins anew without the limitations of mandatory sitting in classes. A sedentary lifestyle really does affect our health. More workplaces and even universities should realise the need for employees and students to have active lifestyles in order to increase health and productivity.

So remember, get up a few more times during the day and take a walk around the office… preferably to a water cooler and not a snack machine.