WATCH YOUR DREAM

The difficult and exhausting task of educating requires us to have sufficient energy and enjoy physical well-being and emotional We invite you to reflect on the following question: Do you lead a healthy lifestyle?

The way we live, how we eat, whether or not we exercise physically, whether we sleep or rest enough, or our state of mind are essential to enjoy health physical, cognitive and emotional. Teaching your children healthy lifestyle habits (good nutrition, physical exercise, getting enough sleep...) is the best gift you can give them. Not only Mathematics is important.

We begin by sharing with you the chapter referring to SLEEP. We offer you concrete guidelines to sleep better

If you are interested in reading the complete book you can find it in the following link

THE DREAM

The first pillar of a healthy lifestyle is sleeping well. Sleep is a fundamental restorative mechanism for the proper functioning of our mind and body. When we do not sleep long enough or consistently well enough, fatigue takes over, both physically and mentally. In this context, it is easier to let our guard down and allow the shadow of negative thoughts to take over us.

What the research says:Studies conducted with university students showed that people who sleep well are 6% more satisfied with their lives than those who sleep normally, and 25% more satisfied than those who sleep little. This study also showed that switching from one thought to another before falling asleep is related to difficulty falling asleep and its quality, which in turn influences unhappiness.The quality and quantity of sleep contributes to health, well-being and a positive outlook on life. In those who sleep less than eight hours a day, each hour sacrificed results in an 8% lower chance of feeling well the next day...

Here are some suggestions to help you regain proper sleep habits… or to learn them if you haven't been able to acquire them until now. Go ahead and prepare the necessary conditions to facilitate sleep, you will feel much better.

1. Reduce your consumption of coffee, tea and other stimulants. It is very likely that you think that they do not affect you, and it is true that they may not be the only ones responsible, but they do influence. Go ahead and check it out: reduce the amount of stimulating drinks and don't consume them in the afternoon. You'll see how it works! Keep in mind that tobacco and alcohol are also stimulants. It is possible that alcohol can relax you at first, but after a few hours it contributes to insomnia and reduces the quality of sleep.

2. Control your worries during the day, and especially at bedtime. It is common for worries to “take advantage” of the fact that we are in bed doing nothing to start torturing us with more intensity. If you tend to be a victim of nocturnal worry, apply the exercises that we have taught you (thought stopping, etc.) before going to sleep. However, keep in mind that you would get better results if you practiced during the day and accustomed your mind to thinking differently. If you allow your head to ruminate all day, you'll have a hard time stopping it at bedtime.

3. Practice relaxation.In addition to occupying your attention on something more productive than mulling over problems, relaxation helps you fall asleep sooner and increase the feeling of rest and well-being during sleep.

4. Establish good pre-sleep rituals:drink hot milk or a relaxing infusion, take a hot bath, receive a massage, spend some time reading, listen to classical music at low volume, etc. On the contrary, do not do intense physical exercise before going to bed, nor eat oranges, grapefruits, lemons or kiwis, which contain a lot of vitamin C, which is stimulating.

5. Avoid sleeping pills. These medications create dependence and, therefore, it is difficult to abandon them when one gets used to them. Furthermore, they do not solve insomnia, but simply induce sleep artificially, so when you stop taking them the problem will not have disappeared. However, we advise you not to abandon them when you find yourself immersed in a crisis, are under a lot of stress or have had a strong upset. In those moments, it can be counterproductive. It is better that you wait until you feel well, you will have time later. On the other hand, it is essential to stop them gradually, following your doctor's instructions.

6. Go to bed only when you are sleepy. If you go to sleep very awake, no matter what time you usually do it, you run the risk of associating bed with thinking about your problems and becoming desperate not to. be able to fall asleep.

Forget about bedtime, don't get anxious and don't get into bed until you fall asleep.

7. Don't get obsessed with sleeping eight hours.It is true that this is considered the ideal number of hours of sleep for an adult, but not all adults are the same and it will not help you to try to achieve that goal if, for example, you only usually sleep four or five hours usually. For many people it is enough. It is more important that, even if you sleep less, you sleep well and the sleep is restful. Also don't forget that as we get older we need to sleep less. Of course, as you apply the other resources to sleep well, you can propose to extend your sleep time from half an hour to half an hour.

8. Forget the clock. If you have the habit of looking at the clock when you go to bed, every time you wake up during the night and before you get up to calculate how many hours you have slept, give it up: it only gives you anxiety. If you need to have a clock to wake up in the morning, “put it facing the wall” so you can't see the numbers.

9. Don't insist on sleeping.Remember that you should only go to bed when you feel sleepy, but don't insist on feeling sleepy. Don't go to bed, distract yourself and help sleep by doing things that are not exciting: thinking about something boring, listening to relaxing music, watching TV (avoiding, of course, content with action or violence and the news and brightening up the room you are in with soft light. A trick that never fails is to try to stay awake.

Cuanto más trates de mantenerte despierto, antes te dormirás.

10. Read until your eyes close. Put down the book and go to bed only when it is impossible for you to continue reading. If reading helps you sleep, you can do it in bed as a pre-sleep ritual and turn off the light only when the book falls out of your hands. Keep in mind that it is better that you read out of bed to associate it only with the fact of sleeping. Being relaxed and reading in any other comfortable place in the house is much more restful and restorative than tossing and turning in bed. Don't worry if you read for hours, it will always be better than despairing because you can't fall asleep. If when you stop reading and turn off the light you wake up again, don't hesitate: turn it on again, get up and continue reading. Do this several times during the night if necessary. Don't think of reading time as wasted time, but as a time of learning, relaxation and pleasure.

11. Keep a notebook and a pencil on the nightstand in case, once in bed, you remember something important. Don't try to remember it: you will only worry and wake up. It's much better to write it down in your notebook and forget about it. You'll deal with it the next day.

12. Always get up at the same time. Regardless of how many hours you have slept, respect your time to get up. Do not calculate the hours you have slept, forget and accept that you are already awake. And most importantly: don't spend your time observing the effects of lack of sleep. You will feel much worse than if you simply started the day as if nothing had happened.

13. Avoid sleeping during the day.No matter how tired you are, it is better to hold on so that it is easy for you to fall asleep at night. Napping is a very healthy Mediterranean custom, but for some people it prevents them from sleeping well at night. If you want to recover your sleeping habits, it is better that you give up naps for a while. You will recover it later, when insomnia stops being a problem for you. In any case, if a nap is essential to last the entire day, keep it, but try to shorten it as much as possible.

14. Lose the fear of insomnia.Although sleeping well and for a sufficient amount of time is an indication of well-being, lack of sleep does not interfere as much with our tasks as we sometimes imagine. It is not so much that our performance is worse than that we believe it is worse. The others don't notice it. Spending a night without sleep or a few days sleeping poorly is not that serious. What happens is that, if the situation continues, it can affect your mood. That's why we offer you these suggestions.

Los experimentos del Dr. Hauri:
El Dr. Hauri, un especialista en sueño de la clínica Mayo de EEUU, realizó algunos experimentos para comprobar si la falta de sueño realmente empeora nuestro desempeño. Por un lado, impartió una clase un día después de una noche sin dormir y otra habiendo dormido, y comprobó que sus alumnos no fueron capaces de encontrar diferencias en la calidad de ambas. Por otro lado, estudió el rendimiento de sus estudiantes en relación con el sueño. Les sometió a unas pruebas después de haber dormido normalmente y después de haber estado una noche sin dormir. No encontró diferencias.

15. Adapt your sleep schedule to your life.Some people think that they do not sleep well and yet they do not really suffer from insomnia, but rather their schedule has changed. They think they suffer from insomnia because they have trouble falling asleep, but when they really evaluate their sleep hours they realize that they sleep for a long time. Some sleep late, but they also tend to wake up late. Others complain that they sleep little at night, but it turns out that they do so during the day, thus completing their sleeping hours. If you find yourself in any of these cases, but the schedules to which you have become accustomed are not the most suitable for the type of life you lead, adapt them to your needs. Get up early until you get to sleep earlier or eliminate your hours of sleep during the day.

16. Stay activeMaintaining a certain level of activity and doing moderate physical exercise, avoiding the hours before going to bed, is important to sleep better. If you have gone through the experience of going out for a whole day hiking, if you walk and swim when you go to the beach, if you are a fan of skiing or any other sport, you will have seen how well you sleep afterwards.

17. Don't stay in bed longer than necessary. Sleep is important, but too much sleep is just as bad for your mood as too little sleep, if not more so. When your morale is low, don't let yourself be carried away by the temptation of going to bed, which will be devastating for your mood and will prevent you from getting through difficult moments.

If you liked the article we have one specific about how to help your child develop habits to sleep well: How you can help your child sleep well

You can get the book at the following link. https://www.amazon.es/ you can-learn-to-be-happy-develop-ebook/dp/B075WVMVPC