Pandemic, lockdown, and sleep.
Good night and sleep well! How often have we heard these terms? And how refreshed do we feel when we receive them? yes, good sleep is necessary for a lot of reasons especially for mental and physical health, balancing hormonal levels, mood swings, weight, and also keeping us healthy and happy. An adequate amount of sleep for 6 to 10 hours is preferable to carry out the next day effectively. Psychology explains that there are 4 stages of a sleep cycle (stage 1, 2, 3 and the 4th stage being the most important is the REM stage or the rapid eye movement stage of the sleep cycle where we dream and it emotionally heals us to a certain extent)
Are we getting enough sleep? This has been a concern for a long time now, but as of now, the concern remains to whether we’re getting adequate sleep during the lockdown?! The lockdown feels like a never-ending vacation and the joy of staying up late due to an absence of early morning classes feels long gone. Our sleep patterns are being affected. Sleep disorders such as insomnia, Parasomnias, 24-hour sleep-wake disorder, narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, and others are much more common these days due to lack of discipline too. But if we don’t go too far, we realize that the basic problems we face are drowsiness, anxiety, worry, stress, early signs of depressions, isolation and other uncertainties affecting us during the pandemic.
Like the TV shows, books, and work from home schedules, along with the active use of social media around us gets more interesting, boring, or very hard to put down, our sleep patterns are shaken up due to many reasons like the changes in physical activity, eating patterns and environmental changes (or the lack of them).
A good way to maintain our health, and have proper functioning, we need to fix our messed up sleep patterns to maintain our circadian rhythms. We often have heard people say that there are sleep issues as weekends and weekdays tend to be the same during these times, therefore it is important to have a schedule for our days, as it is important to wake up with the sunlight and rest when the sun is down. Hence there are a lot of little things we can do for ourselves. Sleep is so important in our lives that we spend a lot of time in our lives sleeping and since it is interrelated with everything in our body as well as how we manage our external environments, we must try to follow this to some extent and utilize this lockdown in self-care and health. Yes, sleep should be our priority. Just like the small puzzle pieces form a bigger picture, our minute habits can change our lifestyle, and with that being said, try and observe yourself and change the little things that matter! And with that being done you can reward yourself with extra sleep!
Contributed by Nandita Menon content writer at Mitti Ke Rang
Our Social Media:
Website: https://www.mittikerang.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitti-ke-rang-mkr-81b230120/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mitikerang?s=08
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitti_ke_rang?r=nametag
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mitikerang/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLlifUqAQ_4vv8R4B5tqzPg
