Sleep health and wellbeing

Sleep is a vital process and makes a huge impact on our day-to-day wellbeing, as well as our physical and mental health.

The most fundamental model of health is called ‘The Three Pillars’ – which are exercise, nutrition, and sleep.

Many approaches to wellbeing are very focused on exercise and nutrition, with sleep often not covered to the same degree. But sleep makes up an entire third of your basic health need.

In fact, if all three pillars are not properly covered, then your efforts in the remaining two are very hampered. Exercise and nutrition won’t work without sleep, just as sleep and nutrition wont work without exercise.

But sleep is the most fascinating of the three pillars. While all these Pillars are essential – sleep is the only one outside of our voluntary control. And it gets more bizarre, because the harder you try to sleep, the less likely it is to happen.

How can you control and improve your sleep?

And problems with sleep are extremely common. At any one time, 10% of the adult population in the UK have insomnia. Other sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea can affect up to 40% of some population. And the effects of sleep loss are tough. Think back to the last bad night of sleep that you had – how did you feel? Physically fatigued, unable to concentrate, bad tempered and with a terrible memory. And that’s after one night!

But when sleep loss goes on for weeks, months or even years it can have a much more significant impact on your physical and mental health, increasing your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes as well as depression and dementia.

From an occupational point of view, people who don’t sleep are much more likely to call in sick, much more likely to have a significant accident at work, and also more likely to have an accident on the road. Workplaces with a poor sleep culture also experience much higher staff turnover.

But poor sleep can be fixed!

There are effective and evidence-based methods for getting people sleeping better. Poor sleep is not something that needs to be endured. So if you feel that you aren’t where you want to be with your health, then sleep might be the pillar that needs some attention.