Being sleep deprived can be both a cause and an effect of being stressed.

While stress can keep you up at night, operating on too few hours of sleep can make you less productive, more emotional, and more reactive to stressful events in your life.

On average, people need around eight hours sleep a night (although this can vary between three hours and eleven hours, depending on the person and her age). Sleep should be as important in your everyday routine as going to work and showering. It is a critical element to your physical and mental well-being. A body without sleep is physically and mentally anguished.

If you are regularly short of sleep, then your concentration and your effectiveness suffer and your energy levels decline. You have all seen and experienced this.

Sleep deprivation diminish your effectiveness and performance, and can therefore increase stress: as your concentration wanders, you start to make mistakes.

Inability to asleep or tendency to wake up earlier as usual are signs to indicate that you are more prone to suffer from job-related stress and burnout.

As your energy declines, you become less proactive in what you do, reducing your control over events. This means that a situation that is already difficult and stressful can become worse, needing even more sacrifice to bring it back under control.

There are scientific proves that as a little as a night or two of good, sound, restful sleep may do a lot for controlling your cortisol levels and reducing your long-term risk for many chronic diseases.

- Learn how to listen to your internal clock. When you are tired go to bed. Research shows you should sleep 7 to 9 hours.

- Do something calming in the hour before bedtime – relaxing book, homeopathic remedy for better sleep, a warm cup of chamomile, calming music or say positive affirmations.

- Create exercise routine during the day but avoid exercise within three hours of bedtime.

- Buy a comfortable or therapeutic pillow such as to give neck and back support.

- Turn off all lights. Sleeping in darkness is a must!

- Take a calcium and magnesium supplement daily

- The position in which you sleep is important.

- Eat healthy foods high in triptophan such as bananas, figs, almond butter, turkey, and yoghurt.

- Add a few drops of lavender oil lavender oil on temples and behind ears. Try a few drops on a lamp ring.

- Avoid foods with tyramine such as bacon, cheese, chocolate, potatoes, sugar, spinach, wine, and tomatoes close to bedtime.

Change isn't always easy, especially when you doubt about where to start.

Stress coaching enables you to identify the sources of stress in your life and equips you with techniques to manage stress more effectively and reach the permanent stress reduction and stress relief results.

Are you ready to manage stress before it manages you, your health and your professional and personal life?

Don’t hesitate to contact me at info@action4balance.com to find out how I can best help you.

I reward immediate action takers.