I can't get no sleep......

We all have those things that we say we need to do to improve our health, but we never quite get around to them. My big re-occurring moans are “I should drink more water” and “I need to get a better night’s sleep”.

I’ve never been great at sleep, I remember being a teenager and regularly cooking in the middle of the night, my mum would wake up to a sink full of dirty pans and food in the freezer because I just couldn’t sleep. Before having my son I used to top up a bad night’s sleep with a post work nap or a Sunday afternoon nap but the days of a cheeky nap are well and truly over for me (except during Rugby six nations, I get one or 2 naps in her while the husband and the kid are watching, woop, woop, I guess I have some naps coming to me)

Basically, poor sleep is something that I am bored of complaining about, I’ve consulted Dr Google (fear not NHS was present lol but I did also visit some fluff sights on my search) and some of the negative effects of poor sleep are:

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• Problems with memory and concentration– Bad memory is definitely starting to be noticeable, I’ve always had a very good memory until recently, I put it down to just a part of getting older but who knows? As for the concentration part – after 20 minutes of trying to concentrate on something I am away with the fairies (Usually travelling around the countryside with Sandor Clegane, encouraging him to do good deeds and change his ways, because he’s a good lad really, also calling Donald Trump the C word a lot).
  
• Anxiety and depression – Anxiety has always been a big issue for me so, yeah, it would be good if sleep could help me get a handle on that.
  
• Weight gain – don’t know, don’t care, I’ve spent far too many of my years obsessing over a number on the scale and on how much space I take up in the world.
  
• Poor immune system – I wouldn’t say I get sick more than the average person, I make more of a song and dance about it when I do but, it’s not a concern.
  
• Low sex drive – PAHAHAHAAH. This one definitely isn’t an issue for me, if anything my inability to sleep means I often wake up my poor husband to erm, help with the boredom. (He will probably kill me for posting that, it may get deleted, I may find out for sure if he actually reads my posts lol)
  
• High Heartrate – I have the BPM of a fricking humming bird, so hopefully sleep could bring this down.
  
• Accident prone – I always assumed that me knocking over glasses with my butt were because I have a lotta junk in my trunk, saying that I do fall over randomly.
  

If you know of any more negative effects please let me know. As I plan to monitor any improvements. Lots of lovely people have given me helpful suggestions. I plan to try one each week to see if they work for me. Suggestions Received are below – I’ll let you know which one I try first xxxx

• Meditation apps before bed
• Limiting caffeine to the morning
• Hot bath/shower before bed
• Chamomile/valerian root tea
• Try a sleep spray
• Try the sleep score app
• Try Timeshifter
• Intermittent Fasting (Restricting eating to 8 or 12 hour windows)
• Magnesium
  
• Valerian and Hops (Hops is beer right??)
  
• 5-HTP
  

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