We all love to sleep, and the one thing I’m sure we can all agree on is that a good night’s sleep can work wonders for our well being. But what about the times you don’t sleep well? Sleep is a key component in maintaining good health and lack of it can have a serious impact on our lives on a daily basis but equally, good sleep doesn’t necessarily mean lots of sleep as MentalHealth.org describes. Sleep affects our ability to sustain attention, use language, understand what we are reading and hearing. It’s important to note when we compromise on our sleep, we are also compromising on our performance, our mood, and our relationships.
There are four main factors that affect sleep, known as HEAL:
Health
Environment
Attitude
Lifestyle
By using this acronym, you can start to identify which areas of your life you can work on in order to improve your quality of sleep.
The wonderful NHS has put together a test to help you understand and self assess your sleep and at the end of the test they will break down your results for you. The community team here at Syft have all taken the test and highly recommend it.
You can take NHS’s sleep management test here
Remember, getting a good night’s sleep will help maintain optimal mental and physical wellbeing.
For further information and reading on sleep, we recommend the following websites
1. Sleepio: https://www.sleepio.com/
2. Be Mindful: https://bemindful.co.uk/
3. British Sleep Society: https://www.sleepsociety.org.uk/
