Lack of sleep is a considerable instigator of ill health and a common symptom.
With a healthy sleep hygiene routine, we should be able to get to sleep quickly, sleep the whole night, and wake refreshed.
Unless you know you are in a limited stress cycle that will pass soon, it is essential to identify the factors that may be playing a role before sleep becomes an issue or to determine what is.
Now there is somewhat of a melatonin fad going on. Melatonin, while highly relevant to sleep, is more to do with onset than maintenance.
Are you having trouble with sleep onset, maintenance, or waking like you haven’t slept at all?
The best option is to do a sleep journal to get to the likely causative factors the quickest. Include in this the nature and length of sleep, waking hours, what your standard is, what you ate and drank during the day before, where your emotions are at, what day of the week (Sundays can be troublesome for many ahead of the work week) what part of your cycle it is, what the moon cycle is, did you wake with pain or a need to urinate and any other relevant information such as noise from animals or other house members. While you may never have considered some of these, they can be relevant.
One of these, waking up to urinate, can be an early indicator of insulin resistance or Diabetes. Waking at other times for seeming no reason can most often relate to the body clock timing. For example, waking between 3 am to 5 am relates to lungs or unresolved grief. Waking between 1m to 3 am, often to do with liver or anger, is also the chosen wake time for allergies.
Your sleep journal could look something like this:
| Day/ Date | Sleep duration | Sleep Quality | Woke @ | Woke due to? | Food/drink post 5 pm | Emotions | Menstrual cycle | Moon cycle | Anything else? |
What is your sleep telling you?