Pillar 1: Relax - Rest - Sleep with our Wellness Services

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything. - Irish Proverb

Sleep is an Instinctual Basic Need and Vital Human Function

Sleep has a dynamic prevention role and a restoration role for our overall wellness. From a prevention perspective and in close relationship to maintaining healthy stress levels, if our bodies are able to get a proper amount of sleep each night, there is a significant reduction in risk for various medical, psychological and social issues. For example, poor sleep can be seen as a major cause in anxiety and depression, road accidents, simple mistakes at work, increased stress with common work - life tasks, poor learning and memory recall, substance abuse, and relationship conflict. On the other hand, with a consistent healthy sleep hygiene pattern, the human brain is able to "detox" itself (restoration) that allows a person to increase creativity, see a problem and solve a problem with greater accuracy, perform better in sports and performance related activities, reduce the risk of multiple psychological issues, improve healing time with various medical ailments, and develop new pathways in the brain for learning and new knowledge. Dr Mark and our practice ensures that each client will develop a client-specific set of prevention and restoration sleep habits to strengthen a person's overall health status.

Myths and Realities of How Much Sleep is Required

Sleep is one of the oldest instinctual and learned behaviors we have been trying to better understand and control, especially with the advances of the "neurosciences," brain research, the growth of modern healthcare technology and break-through medical treatments with sleep disorders. The opinions can vary among the well known international research centres, universities, "think tanks," medical centres, sleep specialists, science research publications, government health agencies and even the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the topic of sleep. Two myths (among many) concerns us at the Centre for Stress Management: the first myth is as we get older we actually "need" less sleep, the second myth being if we had a bad night of sleep on one night we can make up that "lost sleep" later in the week. Regarding the first myth, it is true that many people notice they sleep less as they get older and may not suffer (yet) from a sleep disorder, medical or psychological problem. Hence, the assumption we need less sleep. But the research is conclusive, if an adult sustains a regular sleep habit of at least seven to eight (7 - 8) hours per night, the quality and longevity of life is (significantly) positively impacted in work, play, learning, personal relationships and especially in stress management. Secondly, once we lose a good night sleep we can not "catch up" or deposit into our "brain sleep bank account" the hours we lost on Monday by sleeping extra hours on Tuesday or Wednesday. Getting a proper and good night sleep the next night after one has had poor sleep the night before is a healthy restoration behavior that reduces the risk of possible short and long-term poor health outcomes. However, the stress and strain the body goes through with frequent sleep loss increases the risk of poor physical and mental health. At our practice, Dr Mark track's our clients' relaxing, resting and sleep habits to reduce the risk of developing poor sleep patterns that impacts a person's quality of life. In short, sleep is our silent healer and doctor that resides within each and every one of us.

Relax and Rest Before Sleep

The onset of the wireless and digital apps world we live in has created many benefits as well as challenges in our health and well-being. Research shows we no longer have work - life balance but instead work - life integration challenges (and opportunities) with conference calls, work emails, texting and workplace laptops embedded in our home life and on holidays. The chronic and sometimes increasing performance stress we place on our physical and mental health with working longer hours and striving to "achieve more to earn more to buy more" can be tiring to the healthiest of us. Our research has shown that students as well as working professionals (including home engineers - mothers and caretakers) who continually experience performance stress over long periods of time go to bed at night not sleepy, but instead tired and exhausted. In other words, the brain knows it is 10:30 at night and we should be asleep, but the brain is still awake and trying to switch off from the daily work-life performance stress (thinking and doing stress if you will). Hence, the restless period in bed when instead it should be a sleeping period in that comfortable bed. Having been trained through Harvard and the University of Michigan on sleep disorders and sleep therapy, Dr Mark teaches all his clients how to disengage from the work world in the relaxing and resting stages, critical stages for our overall wellness so we can increase the sleepy mind-body state so when a person is sleeping they have a greater chance of a good night sleep.

Go To Bed Sleepy Not Tired

A common sleep issue we see with our clients over the years has been the confusion between "being tired" and "being sleepy." Most of us can agree that if we play an afternoon game of rugby or football there is a good chance we will be physically tired when we get home. Being tired and being in a wakefulness state is a common human experience. On the other hand, if we are feeling sleepy, it is not generally from playing a sport, but instead the brain letting us know the wakefulness state has been replaced with a sleepiness state that encourages one to sleep. In other words, tired encourages us to rest, sleepy encourages us to, well, sleep. Our clients we see in counselling for sleep issues generally go to bed more tired than sleepy, in turn causing a large number of clients tossing and turning in bed before they can fall asleep. This is what we call sleep disruption. On the other hands, those who have not gone through the proper three stages for sleep we teach our clients will sometimes find themselves waking up in the middle of the night. This is what we call sleep interruption. Both sleep disruption and sleep interruption have a common element that makes getting a good night sleep an anxious experience; over-thinking as a result of the work-life stress issues.

Stress just doesn't steal sleep, it steals brain clarity, mind-body resilience, and joy in life.

The Centre for Stress Management has four main pillars for wellness services: Work-Life Stress Integration, Movement - Nutrition, Feeling - Thinking Regulation, and Rest - Sleep. Our wellness services are carefully designed where the most common cause for healthcare issues is addressed: work - life stress and poor stress management. Our Rest - Sleep services has shown over the years to not only improve the quality of sleep for our clients, but it also nature's way of restoring and rejuvenating the human body for a longer and healthier life. Email us on info@stresshk.com and see how we can improve your rest and sleep habits that will improve your daily well-being and overall wellness.