Stretching into Better Sleep
Sleep is an essential function to rest and recharge the body, but can quickly become a source of stress when we struggle to fall asleep or wake up feeling poorly rested. This past year of the pandemic has induced increased levels of anxiety and upset even the most constant of routines, resulting in disruptions to many people’s sleep. As stated in a New York Times Article, “a study published in June by the Journal of Sleep Medicine found a 37% increase in the rates of clinical insomnia among adults in China from before the peak of the pandemic”.
Not only that, but with increased time indoors this year, the amount of time spent sitting is expected to have increased from the “average of 13 hours a day” that North Americans typically spend sitting down. Increased anxiety and more time spent stationary, not only are our minds unable to wind down, or bodies and muscles are unable to relax, since “your muscles need activity for proper circulation and health”.
Sleep is extremely important. It can have a huge impact on mood, how you feel, productivity, just to name a few. A Mindbody Green article perhaps stated it most succinctly when they said, “The quality of sleep is closely related to the quality of you day”. Getting enough sleep and getting quality sleep is needed for a healthy lifestyle. Sleep helps to boost energy, improve learning and memory, lowers risk of accidents, reduces health risks and can even improve the quality of your skin.
How can I get a healthy sleep every night?
Stretching can help to improve sleep. “Developing an evening stretching routine helps your body to enter a relaxed state more quickly, and stay in a deeper sleep for longer”. Additionally, by focusing on your body and its present actions, it can help to “separate yourself from the day’s stresses and signal to your subconscious to stop worrying”.
Exercise in general can reduce how long it takes to fall asleep, and how much time is spent awake each night, in addition to increasing sleep time and quality. Stretching before bed helps to elicit the “relaxation response” in which calming hormones are released into the body to help quiet the nervous system.
A recent study published in the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry looked at how stretching and resistance exercise could impact sleep, mood and quality of life for chronic insomnia patients. They found no significant treatment difference between the group that did resistance exercise and the group that did stretching. But, they did find that the groups that did stretching and resistance exercise saw significantly greater improvements in Insomnia Severity Index scores, measures of sleep efficiency and time it took for patients to fall asleep. In the stretching group, tension/anxiety was also noticed to be lower than the control group. The study concluded that “Moderate-intensity resistance exercise and stretching led to similar improvements in objective and subjective sleep in patients with chronic insomnia”.
Assisted stretching can help with sleep by providing a dedicated time for relaxing. Our trained stretch therapists can also show you the best and safest ways to stretch out your body, and help you reach a state of relaxation in body and mind.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/at-home/exercises-for-better-sleep.html
https://www.sleepadvisor.org/stretching-before-bed/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6781703/
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-27395/got-insomnia-these-4-simple-stretches-will-help.html