Having a good night’s sleep can make a big difference in your quality of life. Just ask any ‘New’ Parents how sleep deprivation has impacted on their lives. In the busy world we live in, it is not only parents of young children that are not getting enough snooze time but we could all do with a better night’s sleep. How do we relieve stress and get a better night’s sleep and why is it so important?
Studies have proven that sleep deprivation can adversely affect the brain and your cognitive function, a study by the Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley revealed, that sleep deprivation causes the brain to become incapable of putting an emotional event into the proper perspective and incapable of making a controlled, suitable response to the event. Put in a ‘Nut Shell’, even the simplest tasks become harder or impossible to preform. It not only effects our physical but also our mental health.
There are so many things that we can do to help improve our sleep patterns, from insuring that we have a comfortable mattress and pillows, that has not exceeded their life expectancy. To making sure that we regulate our body’s clock, by scheduling a routine of the same bedtime and wake up time, even on the weekends. Try to avoid eating a heavy meal or having that last sneaky peak at a mobile device before bedtime, your body needs time to shift into sleep mode, so spend the last hour before bed doing a calming activity.
An excellent way to help relieve stress and unwind so that we can all have a better nights sleep is to ‘Use our sense of Smell’, our olfactory nerve is connect directly to the brain and sends signals directly to many different parts of the brain, including the limbic system and amygdala, which are in charge of emotions, mood, and memory. So why not use a scent or perfume to help relieve stress, relax the body, and promote better sleep. A number of essentials oils have been shown in studies to lower blood pressure, heart rate, and skin temperature as well as changing brain waves to a more relaxed state.
From Lavender to Bergamot, Ylang Ylang to Clary Sage , these are just some of the wonderful essential oils that have been used in Aromatherapy to tap into the healing power of scents in order to help calm, de-stress and relax both your mind and body. So why not try and find one that is suitable to you.