Sleep – So you aren’t sleeping well, what can you do?

While it may not seem the most obvious time of year to start talking about sleep, we can often forget when the sun is out our natural instinct is to go out and play sport or socialise.  In addition summer is often a time when things naturally slow down in the business world so we can be tempted to pack in as many things as possible before it gets busy at work. This means at this time of year we can often find out ourselves feeling depleted and short on sleep due to hot summer nights which are not condusive to a good nights sleep. I know I have blogged in the past about sleep, here are my tips for a good nights sleep .  I have talked in the past about how we feel good if we get a good nights sleep but the medical profession is still unclear about why we need sleep.  What is clear is that sleep is a huge clear out of thoughts and feelings that accumulated during the day - and this is critical to our health.  The medical profession has many theories about why we dream or need to dream - what is agreed on is that parts of our brains are very active when we dream  and that dreaming improves our ability to solve problems and be creative. The key question about sleep is often how much sleep do I need.  I don't focus on a figure but go by how my body feels.  That means sometimes it needs more sleep and sometimes less sleep.  What I focus on is the quality of sleep which I judge by how refreshed I feel in the morning.      

What is a foam rolling? A foam roller readily available from the likes of TK Maxx is a tool for self massage.  Foam rolling is basically a cheap and easy way of keeping your muscles flexible. How do you foam roll? You place the foam roller under the area you’re targeting and use a gentle, flowing backwards and forwards motion to apply pressure to the area. How does it work? You know how if you visit us for a massage, we apply pressure to release the knots in your muscles.  You use the same principle with a foam roller except you use your body weight to apply pressure. Are there any downside to foam rolling? While I fully recommend foam rolling it will never replace the precision and experience of a massage therapist.  It can be difficult to target small areas with a foam roller so a spikey ball is a better alternative. How often should you foam roll? The simple answer is as much as you can.  When exercising a foam roller should be used both before and after exercise for best results.  Please try to remember foam rolling isn’t a chore it’s a therapy you will gain benefits from it!

I will begin with a confession, I love dark chocolate.  So I am an avid reader of any scientific research on dark chocolate, as its always good to be able to justify eating chocolate for its health benefits! Recently a research team studied nine amateur cyclists to establish whether epicatechin, a type of flavanol found in the cocoa bean, would increase nitric oxcide production in the body.  Nitric oxide expands blood vessels, allowing more oxygen to get to vital organs, which boosts endurance and sports performance.  The cyclists were divided into tow grounds, with the first instructed to replace a normal daily snack with 40g of dark chocolate for two weeks, while the other group did the same for white chocolate. The two groups were assessed in cycling exercise tests in the laboratory to measure heart rates, oxygen consumption levels during moderate exercise.  The groups switched chocolate types after a one-week interval and repeated the tests.  The cyclists eating dark chocolate were found to use less oxygen and covered more distance in time trails compared to the cyclists eating white chocolate. So maybe dark chocolate shoulder become a staple part of endurance althlete's diets. Reference R K Patel, J Brounder, O Spendiff, 2015, Dark chocolate supplementation reduces the oxygen cost of moderate intensity cycling, Journal of International Society of Sports Nurition, 12:47.