Tips To Help You Sleep This Christmas. 

Christmas is a celebration that brings family and friends together, it is beautifully stressful, there is so much that can go wrong yet so much happiness, joy, and gratitude in one place. When you’re taking care and organising an event of celebration like Christmas you can’t help but stress from it, it is in the end inevitable, despite how careful and cautious you are. The stress that comes with Christmas can disrupt your sleep and your quality of sleep. 

 Here are some tips to help you get a good night's sleep this Christmas:  

• Keep your bedroom dark- if your bedroom is dark, it allows and encourages the production of melatonin which is the hormones that helps you sleep.  
• Turn off all devices- the light from your phones, tv, laptop and any other device will decrease the production of melatonin thus disrupting and slowing down the process of you going to sleep. 
• Relaxing activities- there are somethings you can do to help relax. Mediating may help you sleep better as is it a relaxation technique. When you meditate before bedtime it may help reduce insomnia and sleep troubles by promoting overall peace and calmness. Mediation helps bring tranquillity to your mind and body therefore enriching your inner peace and calmness. This is something that can help out during this festive season, with all of your family and/or friends together in one place may prove to be quite a lot to handle. 
• Avoid exercise- typically working out before going to bed is discourage, it is okay to do a normal amount at a normal level of intensity however, working out at a high level of intensity may make it harder for you to go to sleep. Try to aim to work out on hour before you sleep to decrease it from having an effect on your sleep. Exercise does amazing things for your body so you should work out often, in the morning or the afternoon if you want to work out with high intensity. Working out during the day can help and improve your quality of sleep, just try to pick a good time that works for you without effecting your sleep quality.  
• Take care of yourself- taking care of yourself on such an occasion may slip out of your mind with so much to do however, if you aren’t taking care of yourself then like a domino effect other things can be affected by it too. One being your sleep quality, constantly stressing about Christmas related issues will keep you up at night and it will decrease your quality of sleep dramatically, making you feel sleepy, ruining your mood and overall concentration for that day. Take care of yourself so you can rest well when it’s time to go to sleep so you can reenergise your body for the next day. Somethings that may help with relaxing and taking care of your body is by taking a warm bath, a walk, reading book, revisiting a old hobby. Ways of taking care of yourself are very specific and unique to the individual, the list above may not be anything that brings you peace and calmness which is okay. You just have to find something that does bring you peace, practise it and somehow, if possible, try and bring it into your everyday or every other day routine to practice taking care of yourself and maintaining your peace.  
• Avoid alcohol- some people use alcohol to aid in sleeping however, it’s not a very practical way to help you sleep as it compromises with the quality of sleep that you have. Drinking a high intake of alcohol will lead you to have a horrible, restless night, there have even been some evidence revealing that alcohol actually disrupt the release of melatonin therefore leading you to have broken and bad sleep. It’s okay to drink alcohol just not often or before going to sleep, during Christmas it is very common to drink more than your usually intake of alcohol, just try to not go overboard and make sure you remember to drink water as alcohol can dehydrate you.  
• Avoid sugars and caffeine (teas, coffees, hot chocolates, sweets, chocolates etc) – you should typically avoid drinking anything with caffeine 6 hours before your bedtime, so that it doesn’t have disruptive effect on your sleep. When you eat sugar before going to bed, it rises your blood sugar levels which means that your pancreas will release insulin which then helps the sugar that you’ve just eaten to be taken to your cells to be used as energy. Eating sugar before bed will keep you up as you are fuelling your cells with energy, overstimulating yourself when you are supposed to be relaxing to fall asleep. Sugar and alcohol are both stimulants that is why you should avoid them both before your bedtime as they will keep you up.  
• Have a routine- if you have a consistent routine of when you wake up and when you go to sleep your body will stick to that routine and you will feel tired at the same time. If you go to sleep for 7-9 hours a day consistently then you will have a healthy sleeping pattern, which will mean that you will less likely suffer with sleep troubles. If you have a set timetable of when you eat, it will eliminate the chances of you overeating and eliminate you eating at bad times like before bedtime, thus interrupting your sleep. During Christmas, you're eating pattern may change a little because, there is more to eat, restriction are lowered and with the new year approaching people feel like they can let go of their diet and make a New Year’s resolution to make up for the extra weight that was put on during Christmas. But be careful when you eat and what you eat so that it does not mess up with you already existing routine too much.  

Christmas is a time where a lot is happening all at once, so it’s important to take care of yourself and your sleep as they play vital roles in your day-to-day life and in your overall health. Make sure you enjoy your Christmas holidays!