The Ideal Night’s Rest

Your Body's Recovery Through Sleep

So far, you've learned how a superior mattress and foundation are made, why a nontoxic sleep environment is important to your health, and how to shop for a mattress and foundation that will give you years of supportive, quality rest. Now let's look at how to achieve an optimal night so that you awaken Refreshed, Restored, and Rejuvenated.

Lab Research Shows That the Number of Interruptions Determines the Quality of Sleep

Now that you are lying on your wonderful new Green Sleep nontoxic mattress and foundation, make sure to stretch your body comfortably to cover as large a contact plane as possible. Your goal is to find a stable position that does not leave you feeling compelled to repeatedly shift and turn.

An ideal sleep is disturbed as little as possible by external or internal stimuli. Deep sleep and REM sleep cycles heal your body and mind. Your deep-sleep cycles should last as long as possible. Each year, more and more sleep research is showing that the only way to regain balance and health in life is to get the proper amount of bodily relaxation during sleep.

Sounds simple doesn't it? Then why do so many people suffer from sleep deficiency?

Not Just a Minor Annoyance

Registration of noise, pain, or other stimuli consciously or subconsciously in the brain is the principal cause of the awakenings or position adjustments that disturb the sleep cycle. The predominant cause is painful pressure points. Although painful pressure may originate with an ongoing health issue or a recent injury, it is largely aggravated by the inability of a mattress and foundation to maintain linear and lateral support for your spine, hips, and shoulders.

Lack of quality rest not only produces the obvious effects of morning crankiness, tiredness, stiffness, and aching joints and muscles, it may also lead to other, more insidious effects. Insufficient rest can contribute significantly to loss of memory, increased inability to cope with the small and large tasks of daily life, low functionality at work, auto accidents, and increased irritability and depression. These consequences of night after night of poor-quality sleep can seriously affect your quality of life.

Top Ten Helpful Hints for a Good Night's Rest

After taking your first steps toward ensuring a good night's rest by buying a Green Sleep mattress and foundation, you can do a few more things to help guarantee those three R's: awakening Refreshed, Restored, and Rejuvenated.

• During the day, make sure to get adequate exposure to natural daylight. If you can't be outside, buy a broad-spectrum natural light and use it to give yourself light therapy.
• Take a short walk after dinner to help digest your meal and relax your muscles before bedtime.
• Avoid eating large amounts of food - and especially stimulants such as chocolate, caffeine, or alcohol - within 4 to 6 hours of retiring.
• Avoid stimulating television shows, the evening news, or vigorous exercise too close to your designated bedtime.
• Dedicate your bedroom to sleep. Avoid using it for other activities - especially television watching.
• Establish a relaxing bedtime routine. For example, take a warm bath, read an interesting book, have a pleasant conversation, practice a short mediation, listen to music, or engage in sleep-inducing yoga postures.
• Make sure to have a “buffer zone” between television or computer work or games and your designated bedtime.
• Establish a regular bedtime, and stick to it.
• Keep your bedroom at an even, cool temperature, and make sure that the room is sufficiently dark.
• Review with your physician any medications that you are taking that may be contributing to poor-quality sleep. Maybe he or she can adjust the dosing schedule to help you achieve a better night's sleep.
  

Compensating for the Effects of Aging

As people age, and perhaps take less exercise, less water, and fewer supplements, the body can become stiffer and less flexible. In older people, the natural contact plane with the mattress on which they rest may become smaller.

When the body's contact plane with the mattress becomes smaller, the counter-pressure per square centimetre of skin increases. Subconscious awareness of this pressure will compel shifting, tossing, and turning in bed. Although the stimulus to shift and turn occurs subconsciously (unless actual pain is present), a sleeper will awaken because of the discomfort. Especially after the first two sleep cycles (which are characterized by a greater proportion of deep sleep, during which reaction to such stimuli is lessened), older adults awaken more easily.

In a perfect world, everyone would sleep a full 5 cycles without interruption and without nighttime awakenings. But many of us awaken in the night, and some can find it difficult to fall back to sleep. Those who awaken repeatedly can find it difficult to achieve any feeling of rest come morning.

Research has shown that the number of nighttime awakenings determines overall quality of sleep - and, more to the point, feelings of refreshment in the morning. When the regular pattern of sleep is disturbed, a sleep deficiency is created. The best way to “catch up” is to ensure a slightly longer, quality sleep on the following night. Napping should be avoided, because it can trigger a cycle of poor nighttime sleep, followed by more napping, and so on.

Poorer quality sleep in older adults is not a natural life progression. Usually, it happens because of one or more triggering events such as worry, dehydration, lack of calcium, use of certain medications, or perhaps simply lack of adequate exercise.

If you are experiencing significant sleep deficiency, consult your physician. Persistently poor-quality sleep is neither normal nor natural.