What kind of sleeper are you?

By MiNDFOOD

What kind of sleeper are you?
There are 5 kinds of sleepers - which are you?

Having trouble getting a good night’s sleep? There are five different kinds of sleepers, each with their own unique sleep style – and solution for a solid rest. Sleep Specialist Dr Chris Idzikowski’s book Beating Insomnia: How To Get A Good Night’s Sleep identifies each sleep type and how to combat it. So which one are you?

The Thinker

The Thinker has trouble switching their mind off at night, regardless of how tired they feel. Usually The Thinker is someone who is quite busy during the day and finds it hard to relax. Learning to associate the bed with sleep instead of thinking time is the best way for The Thinker to get a decent sleep. Idzikowski recommends putting aside time each night before bed to think about the day’s events and assess anything that needs doing the next day. Once this is out of the way, the mind should be more at ease and ready for shut-eye.

The Lark

Do you wake up too early every morning? Chances are, you could be trying to sleep more than your body needs and naturally rise early. If this is the case, try to expose yourself to light in the evenings so that your body thinks it is still early and tires later. If you wake early and still feel tired, however, you need to be doing more to make your body sleep well. Try exercising for 30+ minutes a day to wear yourself out, and avoid caffeine after midday as a starting point.

The Sleepyhead

If you think you sleep well but still wake up feeling lethargic and find yourself feeling tired throughout the day, it’s likely that there is something disrupting your sleep. Examine your bedroom environment: is the temperature suitable? Does your bed cause you any back pain or discomfort? Could your position use adjusting? Are there sounds that cause you to partially wake during the night, such as a heat pump whirring or a fridge humming loudly? See how you can change your sleeping situation so that you can get a restful night’s sleep.

The Busy Bee

Do you find yourself too tense to sleep? Busy Bees are always alert and experience enhanced muscle tension as a result. Naturally, this makes sleeping comfortably difficult. Learning to relax muscles that are tense from stress is essential, Idzikowski says. Simple at-home techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation are an easy and effective way to calm the body into not just sleeping, but returning to sleep after waking in the night. Try tensing all your muscles individually, then releasing them for instant relaxedness.

The Debtor

The Debtor ticks up late nights over the week, then tries to compensate by sleeping in during the weekend. This sleep debt makes it much harder to rise on Monday morning to go to work, as the body’s biological clock is slowed. Changing your sleep pattern dramatically from week to weekend makes it difficult for your body to sleep when it should. The best way to avoid this is to prevent a sleep debt from accumulating over the week and try not to sleep in extremely late during the weekend. Reducing late nights will also help.

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