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Tag: sleep

How Listening to Music Can Better Your Life

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Everybody has enjoyed music at some point in their life and has a genre they enjoy the most, whether it’s pop, rap, or reggae. No matter the genre, the feeling of listening to the genre that you like the most stays the same: it relaxes you. 

But what other effects can listening to music have on you?  

Mood Booster and Stress Reducer 

Nobody enjoys the feeling of sadness, but sometimes it is just part of our lives we can’t control. Music has a deeper connection beneath its surface than just a mix of sounds, and lyrics. It has been proven to stimulate your brain by releasing a chemical called “dopamine” which is associated with pleasure within our brain. This means that listening to music boosts yourself emotionally, and mentally reduces stress. Listening to a playlist of your favourite songs, and releasing the dopamine, can also reduce the feeling of depression. 

Starting your day off by listening to music can enhance the rest of your day. If you have issues with stress or just general sadness, then music is a great way to escape. Even if it’s only momentarily, it’s healthier than letting these negative feelings take you over.  

Read Now: How to Better Your Mental Health by Getting Creative

Mind Distraction and Improved Focus

It can distract your mind from your negative surroundings, keeping you occupied in a tranquil state. Noisy workplace? Just pop some earphones in and jam away. Drowning out sounds that stress you out and replacing them with dopamine fuelled music can enhance your mind to focus more on what you want to achieve. With this increase in focus, your productivity will rise higher than it did before and could even lead to avoiding work stress.   

Be warned however, as being overwhelmed by music can distract you from your work, or whatever you are doing while listening to music.  

Music can help you overcome personal difficulties.

Read Now: How Music Can Motivate You to Stick to Your Exercise Routine

Pain Management 

This effect isn’t just about physical pain, but mental pain as well. Whether it is stress, depression, or just general anger. Listening to music that relates to those emotions can cause you to push those feelings out of your mind. Knowing that someone went through the same situation as you and made a song filled with that emotion can let you know that you aren’t alone in this matter. This effect can also allow you to overcome blocks within your life. Whether that is writing blocks or mental blocks. 

It also reduces the pain you perceive and relaxes you a lot more if you are in any kind of physical pain. Which can be extremely useful if the pain is uncomfortable enough to keep you awake at night.  

Creativity and Sleep Improvement 

Music can be very tranquil and peaceful to listen to. It allows you to switch your brain off if you are listening to music without having anything to do. You create a narrative and envision the song in your head, which ultimately, can improve your creativity.

Most people listen to music when going to bed as this creativity that flows through you can help you sleep easier. The constant rush of dopamine to your brain makes your brain regulate hormones, and reduces cortisol which affects stress itself to help you sleep better.

Listening to music can improve your sleep schedule!

Mental Health Healing 

Improving your focus can also help to manage any effects that come with health conditions like autism, ADHD, or Tourette’s. As your mind becomes more focused on the rhythm, sounds, and lyrics, your brain momentarily forgets about reality and places you into a sort of daydream in your head. You remember who is in charge of your life, and it is you, and only you. 

Conclusion 

Music is of huge importance to our lives, even if you don’t listen to it every day. The deep connection between our brain and music is almost magical. You can always find websites online that allow you to listen to music, including:

Remember that there are people who are struggling or have struggled in the same way as you.  

If you require assistance with any topics mentioned here, or in general then please feel free to contact us here at Ceed today. 

How to Get Better Sleep

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The quality of your sleep affects every aspect of your life, from how you cope with stress to your relationships and your productivity. 

Feeling like you aren’t getting enough sleep can make you anxious, which in turn can keep you awake at night, making you feel exhausted and disconnected during the day. 

Stick to a sleep routine to get better sleep!

Insomnia can feel like a vicious, endless cycle, but there are changes you can make to your daily life and mindset to try and beat it.  

Here are some of the most effective changes you can make to your lifestyle to help you get enough sleep. 

Read Now: Why Rest is Important for Productivity 

Make Small Changes to Your Diet 

There are obvious ways to eat healthier. Working more fruit and vegetables into your daily intake, moderating your portion sizes, and cutting down on your sugar intake can all help. 

What you may not know is that exactly when you eat is important for your sleep pattern. 

Late night snacks, sugary or not, have been shown to impact sleep. The science is simple: eating at night gives you a burst of energy that you’ll struggle to burn off before bed. 

Focus on making your regular meals throughout the day more filling. If you eat sugary treats, distribute these amongst meals so you’re not tempted to reach for a box of chocolates at 11PM to fill a hole in your stomach. 

This way, you’ll be eating better, valuing your body and how food affects your mood. But you’ll also be sleeping better, giving you the positive mindset that you need to make and sustain these changes long-term. 

Reconsider your diet to get a better night’s sleep!

Read Now: A Happy Diet: 9 Foods Proven to Lift Your Mood 

Exercise More 

Tiredness brings sleep. To be tired is to have used more energy during the day than you’ve put into your body via meals or snacks. If you’ve made the above adjustments to your diet, and kept to them long-term, you’re already prepared for better sleep in the evenings. 

If you can, one of the easiest (and cheapest) ways to get some exercise is to go for a brisk walk, ideally in the afternoon, or at the end of the working day.  

According to the NHS, even a ten-minute brisk walk every day can improve your health by improving your circulation, especially if you work sitting down during the day.  

Analysts predict that the shift to home working will be a more long-term change to work culture even after the pandemic ends. This means many people will lack the opportunity to walk to and from work. So, it’s more important than ever to make a conscious decision to go for a walk.  

While walking contributes to the recommended 150 minutes of weekly exercise for adults, getting to burn off excess energy and decompress after a long day are happy side-effects. 

But whatever exercise you do, don’t do it right before bed. You won’t be in the calm state you need to be in to fall asleep while you’re full of adrenaline. 

Keep a Sleep Routine 

We’ve all been sat in front of the television, late on a weekend, awake for no reason. Our free time is limited, and we want to know that we’re making the best use of it, even if we aren’t. 

So, rather than staying up as late as humanly possible on a Friday or Saturday, keep close to your weekday bedtime and wake time. If you don’t have a sleep schedule for your weekdays, create one and stick to it. 

You might feel as though sleeping in on weekends is a good way to catch up on sleep missed during the week. 

However, people who keep a regular bedtime and alarm clock routine across a seven-day period are more refreshed throughout the whole week than people who eschew the routine on weekends, by being free from social jetlag. 

Block Out Distractions 

Turn off all your devices at least an hour before bed, and keep away from your phone. Place it on ‘do-not-disturb’ if you have the option, and keep it out of your reach until morning. Across the room, if necessary.  

Resist the urge to check devices at night!

To avoid being disturbed by light sources, make sure any electronic devices that emit light while charging are charged during the day. Get a blackout blind for your window if needed, or wear an eye-mask. 

If noises inside or outside of your room are disturbing you and can’t be dealt with directly, consider wearing ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones.  

Some might recommend putting on a dry podcast, nature sounds, or a music app on a sleep timer before bed. 

However, these will fill your mind with thoughts and ideas when it should be empty. Keep your room silent. Make a conscious effort to clear your mind at night. If you must, think in images, like counting sheep. 

Many things bothering us in our day to day lives can only be dealt with during work hours. You put unnecessary stress on yourself by thinking about these things at night, and increase the likelihood of starting the day tired. 

Read Now: Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to Your Wellbeing 

To Sum Up… 

The good news is that getting enough sleep, for most people, is a matter of routine and psychology.  

Build routine into your life, pay attention to what you put into your body, and train yourself to clear your mind at night. This way, you should finally get some sleep.  

As a final note, while these techniques are proven to be effective in a lot of cases, they aren’t guaranteed to work for everyone.  

If, after following this advice for 4 weeks, you feel you still aren’t getting enough sleep, see your GP. They will have insight, advice, and treatment personally tailored for your situation. 

Improving your sleep pattern can improve all aspects of your life, but if you need just that extra nudge in the right direction, contact us at Ceed. 

Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to Your Wellbeing

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Something that everyone can universally agree on is that we all need a decent night’s sleep. Despite this fact, many people don’t realise how critical sleep truly is to our health and wellbeing. 

Trouble sleeping and lack of sleep is a widespread problem. According to the NHS, it’s a common problem thought to regularly affect around one in every three people in the UK. There are many instances that can cause this trouble sleeping. 

For example, stress is a main factor for people not being able to sleep. The hustle culture of the twenty first century constantly pressures people to be ‘always on’. This undeniably affects our ability to get quality rest and maintain a healthy sleep schedule.  

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Getting regular sleep can help improve your health!

While it can seem like a struggle, there are ways in which you can improve your sleep health in order to improve your wellbeing.

Why is sleep crucial to your wellbeing?

Sleep is essential to both personal health and daily function. Getting enough sleep is only part of the battle – getting quality sleep is just as important. Quality, deep, restful sleep is opportunity for the body to rest and reset. It is during this time that the body engages in recovery and readies you for the next day. 

Lack of sleep or sleep deprivation can be incredibly detrimental to your health. It can: 

  • Affect your energy levels during the day, making you more lethargic and tired.  
  • Have a negative effect on your mood, making you anxious, depressed, or prone to stress.  
  • Lower your concentration, making it difficult to focus, make decisions or judge situations accurately. This makes every day actions such as driving very dangerous.  
  • Make you more likely to become ill, as lack of sleep can affect your immune system and your body’s ability to fight off illness.  
  • It has even been linked to studies showing that lack of sleep can increase the chance of serious illness. These include obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, poor mental health, and early death. 

Sleep is vital to an individual’s performance. It fundamentally affects the way that you function, and it can even be dangerous if you get too little.

So, How Much Sleep Should I Be Getting?

The amount of sleep that each person needs varies. No less than six hours a night is recommended, with the National Sleep Foundation guidelines advising that healthy adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night.  

It is also generally agreed that the younger you are, the more sleep you need. This is because children have more physical and mental growth and development to do than adults. 

This guideline of time, however, is open to adaptation. Some people need more than is recommended, some less. This can be attributed to external factors, such as the job you have, how much exercise you do, or what your health is like. People who are more active need more rest, and people who are more sedentary may need less. 

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Getting the right amount of sleep is crucially important!

Surprisingly, there can be such a thing as too much sleep. Sleeping more than is necessary can have the same effects as sleeping too little. It is important to strike the right balance for yourself and understanding how much is too much for your lifestyle.

Tips on How to Improve Your Sleep

There are a few things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep. You can: 

  • Consider your sleep environment – make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, and cool. Make sure your mattress is comfortable and works for your body. Studies show that newer mattresses reduce back discomfort and in turn increased sleep quality. 
  • Improve your sleep hygiene – wash and change your bedding at least once every two weeks. Ensure you vacuum your bedroom carpet regularly to reduce allergens.  
  • Set a routine – by giving yourself a bedtime, you establish a habit. This makes it easier to fall and stay asleep because your body recognises that it is tired around the same times.   
  • Do calming exercises before sleeping – activities such as reading are relaxing and can make you tired. If you are an anxious person, journaling could also help. This can help rid your mind of stress and prepare you for sleep. 
  • Put your phone away before you begin your sleep routine – The blue light from our phone screens can negatively affect our sleep. It has been found that artificial light at the wrong time may disrupt circadian rhythms and sleep. Put your phone away one to two hours before you sleep in order to give your body a rest from it. 

Conclusion

When it comes to sleep, knowing yourself is crucial. Don’t be afraid to listen to your body and its needs. 

Sleep is the most easily neglected aspect of our health, so must be consciously improved on to become the most rested version of yourself. 

Here at Ceed, we are committed to helping you improve your life. If you’re looking to improve your sleep schedule, feel free to contact us today.  

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