One Week to Improved Sleep

Education has always been important to us, which is why we developed our downloadable booklet, “One Week to Better Sleep”. If you haven’t heard of it, ask us! This helpful program covers ways to fine tune your sleeping habits and patterns in all aspects of your daily life including behavior, environment and diet. These pointers are part of a program that may or may not be taken along with Zenbev Drink Mix. It may seem like a difficult climb at first, but we break it down into manageable parts. Here is a quick look at the highlights of this program.

Manage Your Environment

The cues you give your body have an out-sized impact on the quality of your sleep. We can’t stress enough the importance of reducing light as much as possible. The brain’s natural manufacture of melatonin, the hormone implicated in sleep, requires almost total darkness. Zenbev helps give you the ingredients you need to manufacture natural melatonin but it also works best in total darkness. Reducing any source of light can greatly reduce the time it takes to fall asleep. You can also mitigate any environmental stressors by blocking out unnecessary noise and distractions in your bedroom. Televisions, phones and computers all serve to divide your attention from sleep when it’s past your bedtime. Removing these from your bedroom entirely can work wonders for your body as it recognizes the bedroom as the sole provider of sleep, rather than stimulation. If you must have them there make sure all notifications are off and that no light is escaping from these devices.

Watch Your Diet

The food and drink that we consume affect our body’s capacity to work the way we want it to, especially when it comes to intake of caffeine and alcohol. Whether we like it or not, these products contain chemicals that negatively affect your chances of obtaining high quality sleep. Something that may surprise you is that foods such as chocolate and flavored beverages can contain high amounts of caffeine. Limiting your intake of these after noontime is something that all people who take their sleep seriously should consider. Alcohol has a reputation for aiding sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep). In reality, alcohol messes with your sleep cycles in the middle of the night and has a large impact on the quality of sleep and rest that one gains from their sleep. Avoiding foods that are high in protein later in the day is considered an effective method for limiting dietary stressors. Foods that are high in carbohydrates work well with tryptophan to produce melatonin. Hand in hand, these can lead to a great, deep sleep.

Watch for Speed Bumps

Lastly, we wish to make our readers aware of the concept of learned arousal. Learned arousal involves understanding how the brain makes associations. This was briefly covered when we discussed associating your bed with wakefulness and activity. Simply put, you want your brain to associate your bed with sleep, not all these other activities. It takes a bit of training to do this. The best policy when it comes to managing your arousal is to strictly limit your bed to falling asleep when you are tired. Other activities such as surfing the internet, watching television or even completing work can confuse our body’s rhythm. Other potential arousals can arise when we can’t sleep and opt towards tossing and turning rather than getting up and changing the scene. If we let our frustration become associated with being in bed, the connection might be hard to break. Next time, if you find yourself unable to sleep for a while, try to take a walk or read for a bit. Your bed should be a sanctuary. Any frustration is only going to damage the relationship between your bed and your beauty sleep.

Make a sleep plan of your own taking these important considerations into account. Let Zenbev accompany you on this worthwhile journey. While it may seem like an impossible mountain to climb, it is definitely within your power and best interest to commit to taking these necessary steps!