Stress Part II: Sleep It Off

This is one of the most difficult strategies surrounding stress – getting proper sleep. It often becomes a vicious cycle – the sleep stress pattern. When many of us are under stress, one of the first things to go is proper sleep. Your mind does not settle, and it keeps you awake, or all the things in your mind that are causing the stress awaken you during the night.

Getting a good night’s sleep is a major component of good health (in partner with healthy eating, exercising, and not smoking). Sleep allows our body to go through two types of restoration: mental and physical. During certain sleep cycles, our body restores itself physically and allowing the body to re-energize (and yes, still burn calories). During other sleep cycles, our body restores itself mentally, allowing the brain to compartmentalize everything from the day and put it into memory. Think of it filing everything from the day. Generally, when we fall short on sleep, it is the mental restoration that is shortened, since the body must physically function to keep going.

So, when we are stressed and we are having trouble sleeping, and wake up even more stressed, what can we do?

Before turning to sleeping pills or alcohol, consider these tips:

1. Set your bedtime: plan what time you are going to go to bed tonight. It could be 10 pm or mid-night or even 2 am. Regardless of when it is, plan on it and set it.
2. Set a time limit: shut yourself off or shut things out after a certain time. Make it your own, and be firm. You need to relax before heading to bed – ideally a couple of hours, but realistically, let’s make it an hour before your bedtime.
3. What are you shutting off? Everything – the computer, phone, Blackberry, television… you are beginning a relaxation time before bed, which will be a ritual for you from now on. The iPod/CD player may remain “on” if it is playing relaxing music.
4. Setting your ritual: This can include your cup of (decaf) tea, washing your face, brushing your teeth, writing down (with a pen and paper) something you need to do tomorrow (do not touch that computer or other electronic gadget), taking a bath, or reading a book.
5. Don’t exercise: Please don’t take this literally, but take it to mean not to exercise within a 2-3 hours before you plan to go to be. Raising the body temperature and the heart rate doesn’t help you be calm for bedtime.
6. Avoid caffeine, food, and alcohol: These disrupt sleep if consumed too close to bedtime. Eating right before bed does not cause weight gain unless you are eating too many calories, but it can cause sleep disturbances if you have too much food in your belly.

Setting the Room:

• Sex and sleep: You’ve heard it before and you have it here. The bedroom should be used for only two things, and blogging or twittering isn’t one of them. Keep it to what it was meant for, and nothing more.
• Dark and cool: The room, not your partner. The room should be dark, and ideally cool. Not too warm – that’s what the covers are for.

While planning these sleep rituals may seem like they are taking away from “important” tasks that you need to accomplish, consider this: will you accomplish those tasks more efficiently after you have a good nights sleep, or just accomplish them and miss out on good sleep? Either way, they will get done, but will they be done better when you are in better mental shape?

Work on these things. It may take time and practice, but it is helpful to have these rituals to get you to bed on time and peacefully.

Sleep well tonight – or very soon.

Stress Part I: Move it to Lose It

Everyone looks for something to relieve his/her stress. Whether it is a massage, a drink, a movie, or a good book, we all have out favorite stress reliever. One of the most beneficial stress relievers however is exercise. I know, how SILLY to think of ADDING something to my life, another think to my schedule to contribute to my stress, but lets look at some of the benefits:

• Exercise can decrease the production of stress hormones.
• Exercise helps build up the immune system.
• Exercise increased endorphins – the feel-good hormones.
• Exercise helps build muscle and strength in your entire body including your heart.
• Exercise helps clear your mind of fatigue and helps you think better.

Whether it is aerobic/cardiovascular, strength training, or flexibility (yoga), any type of exercises you can and will engage in usually will have a benefit for your mind, and almost always on your health.

It takes practice and time to get to the point where you can exercise without your mind going to where you think you should be. For example, going on that walk and thinking about the “to do” list, or “clearing your mind” in yoga class, but eventually it happens. It can take weeks, or months, but you will get there with practice.

You learn to not feel guilty about all those things you should be doing instead of exercise, because when you get back to your task, I promise, it will still be there. If it isn’t…all the better!

How much exercise should you do? Based on the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, here is the reality of it:

• All adults should avoid inactivity. Some physical activity is better than none, and adults who participate in any amount of physical activity gain some health benefits.
• For substantial health benefits, adults should do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous intensity aerobic activity. Aerobic activity should be performed in episodes of at least 10 minutes, and preferably, it should be spread throughout the week.
• For additional and more extensive health benefits, adults should increase their aerobic physical activity to 300 minutes (5 hours) a week of moderate intensity, or 150 minutes a week of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity. Additional health benefits are gained by engaging in physical activity beyond this amount.
• Adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities that are moderate or high intensity and involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits.

It may seem like a lot, but lets break it down: 150 minutes is 30 minutes five times a week and 300 minutes is 1 hour a day five times a week.

Will exercise prolong your life? Maybe, maybe not. But it will help it be a healthier life while you are here. Trust me – there is time to do this. One day, there will be plenty of time, but by then it could be too late. The stress will have caught up to you and by then the chronic disease will have caught up too, and you will wish you could do some walking on your own. I hope you saved for retirement and got a good long term health care plan.

Stress Is Relative

If you are the least bit like me – you stress out on many things, the littlest things, and anything. As I noted in my October 18th posting prior to my marathon, I had nerves, I had a headache and I had trouble eating. Even the morning of the event I got into a “fight” with my husband (meaning I was irritated and crabbing at him) as he was driving me to the event because I wasn’t going to get there as early as I wanted to. He even said to me – “it’s only a run!” I KNEW that! I wasn’t running for anyone but me. I was stressed about the run, but my stress presented itself in irrational behavior toward him.

Five days after the marathon I was in a meeting in Chicago with about twenty other dietitians. We did an exercise/ice breaker where we stated our most stressful moment in the last five days. I mentioned my marathon – and while it was a personal accomplishment, it had been (one of the) more stressful moments of the past five days. I could have also mentioned trying to make sure I packed all my things for a cold weather five day trip into one suitcase so I wouldn’t be charged a $25 luggage fee by American Airlines, or hoping that my airplane didn’t get delayed since I needed to be at a meeting in downtown Chicago an hour after I landed, or any number of things that I chose to stress about that week, but the marathon was the biggest.

I was the first to go, but once others took their turn mentioning their stressful moment in the past five days, I realized how my stress is so…silly? One person, who owns her own business, was upset by having to lay-off one of her employees due to slower business in the current economy; another had her business partner in her successful community magazine leave her and she was completing what would be her last publication that weekend; a third woman whose husband serves in the special forces in the military, helped another wife bury her husband the days before we were sitting in the room. All this had happened in the five days prior to our meeting!

Two days later as I am speaking to my husband on the phone, he is quite upset over how our son left a crayon in his pants and it “ruined” a pair of his jeans and he had just spend half and hour cleaning the dryer. I almost laughed. “It’s a pair of pants,” I told him. A pair of pants and thirty minutes cleaning a dryer is nothing compared to still having a job, a companion, and a life. He got my point, but was still irritated.

I WILL still stress about “silly things,” I just cannot help it. Unfortunately, it is my personality type and I know it. However, I recognize, and we must all recognize, that most of the time (of course, not all) the stresses in our lives are brought upon ourselves. But most importantly, the way we respond to the stresses in our lives is very important to our health and wellness.

If we choose to blame others for the stresses, then we will be unhealthy and have repercussions of the stresses. If we choose to make changes, adapt, and/or accept the environment we are in, then we may be healthier for it.

Stress is relative. When my son’s car broke down, literally in the middle of the road – that was very stressful AT THAT MOMENT. It was soon over. A new stressor will present itself soon, and so will many others. I can choose to be upset by things, or do my best to take it in stride. I have several mantras for this:

• A year from now, will this matter? (Only once was that the case, and that was when my dog was missing. It turns out he was at the neighbor's house, so it ended up not being the case after all. Most of the time, a week from now, it won’t matter.)
• There is a reason for everything. There is a purpose for this. I just may not know what it is.
• This isn’t the worst that could happen.

Work on realizing what stressors are really YOU choosing to be stressed.