World Sleep Day
World Sleep Day is an annual event, intended to be a celebration of sleep and a call to action on important issues related to sleep, including medicine, education, and social aspects. The slogan for this 14th annual event is ‘Regular Sleep, Healthy Future’.
With the biennial daylight savings time (DST) weekend behind us, most of us in North America have seen our time jump ahead by an hour. DST is coming soon to many other parts of the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, we lost or are about to lose an hour of sleep.
Not a big deal, right? It’s only an hour. Can’t have that much of an effect on us.
It turns out, the semi-annual flip-flopping of the time does affect us—and our health. Changing the time messes with a little thing called our circadian rhythm. This is our internal body clock that controls our sleep-wake cycle. Throwing this out of sync can have significant health implications, from weakened immunity to the interruption of cellular and metabolic processes.
World Sleep Society
Hence the work of the World Sleep Society. As said in its mission statement, “The fundamental mission of World Sleep Society is to advance sleep health worldwide.”
And what important work this is. Sleep is important enough to be one of the five pillars of The MEANS to an End Lifestyle. Any anti-ager will benefit his or her quality of life with good quality sleep.
World Sleep Day
To highlight the importance of sleep, World Sleep Day was established in 2008. It’s held the Friday before Spring Vernal Equinox every year. For 2021, the official date is 19 March.
World Sleep Day 2021
In celebration of World Sleep Day, take some time to reflect on your sleep patterns. Are you getting enough? Do you have good sleep habits? What can you do to improve the quality of your sleep?
The goal and purpose of World Sleep Society is to advance knowledge about sleep, circadian rhythms, sleep health, and sleep disorders worldwide
As World Sleep Day approaches, here are ten points to consider for improved sleep quality courtesy of World Sleep Society:
- Fix a bedtime and an awakening time.
- If you are in the habit of taking a nap, do not exceed 45 minutes of daytime sleep.
- Avoid excessive alcohol ingestion 4 hours before bedtime and do not smoke.
- Avoid caffeine 6 hours before bedtime. This includes coffee, tea, and many sodas, as well as chocolate.
- Avoid heavy, spicy, or sugary foods 4 hours before bedtime. A light snack before bed is acceptable.
- Exercise regularly, but not right before bed.
- Use comfortable bedding.
- Find a comfortable temperature setting for sleeping and keep the room well ventilated.
- Block out all distracting noise and eliminate as much light as possible.
- Reserve the bed for sleep and sex. Don’t use the bed as an office, workroom, or recreation room.
Hi Bill
To celebrate World Sleep Day I was pretty comatose most of the day due to inclement weather here in the UK. I drifted off after lunch for an hour and later whilst watching boring repeats on tv I drifted off for a further hour! Coming to about 10.30pm and I did some online news reading having missed it on tv, then went to bed and slept for 8 hours!!
Chris
Wow. You sure did World Sleep Day proud! That’s a lot of sleep. I’m jealous. I aim to be in bed every night by 10. Can rarely sleep past 5 or 5:30. I use a sleep monitoring device. In the past year I could count the number of times I slept more than 7 hours on both hands. Sleep is one thing I really need to improve upon. So good on you!
Nice article Bill!
Thanks, John. I firmly believe we are in the infancy of learning about extending our healthspan…and will discover more and more that sleep is a critical component of doing so.