Tips for Recovery-Boosting Sleep

You can’t be your best in recovery unless you care for your mind, body and spirit – and quality sleep can strengthen those connections. Regular, restorative sleep will allow you to feel present, energetic, focused and emotionally balanced. Sleep will also enable you to adopt a more positive mindset to overcome any challenges or setbacks along the way. 

Unfortunately, it’s pretty common for people in recovery to struggle with sleep. This is mainly because addiction as well as co-occurring mental illnesses can disrupt your body’s circadian rhythms. Plus, a long history of abusing drugs or alcohol often leads to poor sleep hygiene. Luckily, these steps you can help enhance your recovery and improve your shut-eye. 

• Avoid long, late-day naps. While a short nap (20 minutes or less) can help you feel revitalized and refreshed, a longer nap can cause you to feel groggy and disrupt your sleep cycle. It’s also wise to avoid naps after 3 pm, which will do more harm than good.  
• Stick to a regular sleep schedule. This means doing your best to wake up and turn in the same time each night – even on weekends. 
• Create a ritual for bedtime. Whether you do gentle yoga poses, stretch, meditate, read, listen to calming music or soak in a bath, that half hour prior to bedtime should consist of something that relaxes your mind and body. 
• Watch what you eat or drink. Eating too much or too little before bedtime can interfere with your sleep. If you’re looking for a bedtime snack, choose a healthy food combo that will fill you up and help you feel energized in the morning. Some examples: apple with nut butter, cottage cheese and peaches, whole-grain toast with avocado or a banana and a handful of sunflower seeds. Also, avoid nicotine and caffeine, which disrupt sleep cycles. 
• Exercise every day. A regular exercise routine has been study-proven to help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly through the night. Just be careful not to work out too close to bedtime, as you may be too amped up to fall asleep. 
• Eliminate light and sound. This means shutting off smartphones, computers, laptops and other electronics. To block outside light and noise, consider using blackout curtains, eyeshades, earplugs, “white noise” machines, humidifiers, fans and other devices. 

Healing the Mind, Body and Spirit

At Complete Harmony, we use traditional and holistic therapies to help clients rediscover their mind body connection and address  the secondary health challenges that complicate substance abuse. To learn more about our cutting-edge treatments, call 866-930-4673.

Study Links Sleep Loss and Depression

Making sleep a priority is perhaps the best thing you can do to stop negative thinking and safeguard your mental health. In fact, a new study links chronic lack of sleep with an increased risk of depression. 

Researchers from Binghamton University says the connection is due to a phenomenon called repetitive negative thinking (RNT), which the study authors define as “abstract, perseverative, negative focus on one's problems and experiences that is difficult to control.” And an inability to suppress negative thoughts is a common symptom of both mood and anxiety disorders.

Study participants were asked to view negative images (guns, knives, threatening animals), positive images (nature, sports) or neutral ones (household items). It turned out that people who slept fewer hours looked at the negative images longer and had more trouble disengaging from them. 

While more research is needed, study authors say that a lack of sleep may deteriorate the neural processes that normally suppress or shed negative thoughts and negative incoming information.

“[The connection] may be explained by a reduction in available cognitive resources, particularly those needed to inhibit information and handle novel information,” the authors write in their paper. “It is possible that sleep disruption deals a ‘second hit’ to attention control in individuals who are already vulnerable in their subjective and/or physiological responses to negative information.”

Sleeping for Sobriety

Maintaining a proper sleep schedule can certainly go a long way toward helping your recovery. Here are a few reasons why:

• You’ll have better emotional control.
• You'll have increased energy and optimism. 
• You’ll have more focus and better memory. 
• You’ll have a stronger immune system. 

Are You Struggling With Depression and Addiction?

Co-occurring conditions like depression may exist prior to substance abuse, or develop as a side effect of drug and alcohol dependency. Using traditional and holistic therapies, Complete Harmony has a proven history of successfully addressing the secondary health challenges that complicate substance abuse. To learn more, call 866-930-4673.