How much do you value a full night of sleep? While the standard recommendation has always been between seven to nine hours of sleep a night, with all of life’s distractions in this hyperactive modern era that expectation can be a little unrealistic for many. In a recent study by the Good Body, 35 percent of Americans do not get the recommended amount of sleep a night. They had also found that on average, most people tend to get around 6.8 hours. This is a startling realization as the national average was nine hours a night in 1910.
Working towards the perfect night of sleep
Are you getting a full night of sleep? Photo: iStock
So what went wrong? With how fast things move these days with the emergence and reliance of technology, the barriers between work and home life have begun to blur more than ever before. With the convenience of smartphones, we can access our work and personal emails and schedules to our everyday lives within a couple of swipes. Many people also rely on their phones as an alarm clock and as a result, the National Sleep Foundation found that 71 percent of all Americans “holding their smartphone, having it in bed with them, or having it on their nightstand.”
All of these factors can build up a considerable amount of stress and eventually lead to the development of such disorders like ADHD, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. “If you are stressed, basically what you do is you keep thinking about it,” says Vasudha Gupta, an Ayurveda Physician with the 100% holistic herbal supplement American Ayurveda. “Although you can’t do anything concrete about that situation, you keep thinking about it. When you keep thinking about it, you tend to lose some sleep because your brain is all over.”
With getting a full night of sleep becoming increasingly more difficult, many people turn to the help of sleeping pills to help them ease into slumber. But this may be an issue as well, as some of these drugs can become habit forming. With natural alternatives such as American Ayurveda, and with the right combination of powering down your devices, not eating before bed, and believe it or not, rubbing your feet with warm essential oils, you can reach a point of relaxation without knocking yourself out with powerful medication. While other powerful under the counter sleeping pills may put you out, you may not wake up feeling as rested in the morning the same way after taking a completely natural alternative.
“Our product has Indian herbs such as Ashwagandha, Turmeric, and Brahmi which basically strengthen your immune system and also your nervous system,” explains Gupta. “When it strengthens both of these systems, what happens is your brain starts functioning properly and your body gets control over sleep…This is not like modern medicine where you take a pill and it knocks you out. Even if it knocks you out, your brain keeps working in the background and when you wake up, you are not rested.”
By getting a full night of sleep, you will notice that things will start falling into place within your day-to-day life. You will be energized enough to go on that run you always talk about. You will be focused more at work and able to tackle daily tasks in a more efficient way. Plus, maybe you can even cut down on that extra midday cup of coffee.
