Sleep and Your Health

Quality sleep – the kind that makes you look refreshed and feeling energized – is exactly what the doctor ordered. In fact, sleep is as important to your health as diet, nutrition, and exercise. The right amount and quality of sleep improves attention, behaviour, memory, and overall mental and physical health; it also helps the body maintain and regulate many vital functions.

You may often feel tired, or perhaps your current sleep habits, sleep arrangements, and sleep quality are less than ideal, but there’s hope! There are many ways to improve your rest, and consciously incorporating even a few of them will likely lead to a more restful and enjoyable sleeping experience.

Your lifestyle and its impact on sleep

Your daily choices have a big impact on the quality of your sleep—from what you eat and drink to how you spend your evenings—small habits can either help or hinder your ability to rest well. For example, caffeine and alcohol can interfere with sleep. Caffeine keeps you alert, while alcohol may make you feel drowsy but disrupts deep sleep later on. Eating heavy meals right before bed can also make it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Physical activity plays an important role too. Regular exercise is linked to better sleep, but timing is key. Working out too close to bedtime can leave you feeling too energized to settle down, while too little movement during the day can make it harder to fall asleep. Striking a balance, like getting moderate exercise earlier in the day, can help maintain a consistent sleep routine. Additionally, how you unwind in the evening is important—spending time on screens, working late, or engaging in stressful activities can keep you from relaxing and drifting off.

For first responders, however, maintaining a healthy sleep pattern can be even more challenging. The nature of the job—emergency calls, long shifts, and unpredictable schedules—means sleep is often cut short or happens at irregular hours. While it’s easier to adjust after the occasional sleepless night, constantly switching between day and night shifts can disrupt your body’s natural rhythms. The usual signals that regulate sleep, like exposure to daylight and a consistent bedtime, are often out of sync, making it harder to get quality rest. Over time, this can lead to fatigue, reduced alertness, and even health concerns, highlighting just how crucial it is to prioritize sleep whenever possible.

Signs you aren't sleeping well

How can you tell if you’re not getting the sleep you need? Or just as important, if the sleep you are getting is of the quality you need to be your most productive, happy and healthy self? Beyond simply feeling unrested, there are a series of signs that may indicate you aren’t sleeping as well as you should. Among the most common are:

• Excessive daytime sleepiness, fatigue, or lack of energy that may result in the urge to nap or interfere with daily activities

• Waking up feeling fatigued or unrested

• Taking over 30 minutes to fall asleep or difficulty falling asleep in general

• Frequent waking during the night or trouble staying asleep

• Waking up too early and not being able to get back to sleep

• Sleeping too much or too long which may indicate the quality of sleep you’re getting isn’t optimal

Another major sign may be the presence of one or more disorders, such as restless leg syndrome (RLS) or unpleasant feelings in the legs or arms, sleep apnea or other breathing disorders, sleepwalking, snoring, teeth grinding.

Health risks associated with lack of sleep

Not surprisingly, over time, a lack of adequate sleep can be associated with a shortened lifespan. Multiple studies have shown that sleeping less than five hours per night may increase mortality risk by up to 15%.

As our lives are crowded with family, friends, work, and other activities, many of us overlook the potential consequences, squeezing more and more into our days and nights, leaving quality rest as an afterthought. Even reducing that optimal eight hours by just two or three hours per night can dramatically increase the odds of developing:

• Alzheimer’s

• Cardiovascular disease

• Compromised immune function

• Depression

• Diabetes

• Hypertension

• Obesity

• Susceptibility to injury—both on the job and off

Tips to improve sleep

• Create a relaxing evening ritual. Do things that relax you to create a pre-sleep routine that removes some of your daily stress. Over time, a routine may act as a signal within your brain that it’s time to sleep. Use common favourites like a warm bath or massage or try other calming activities like meditating, breathing exercises, or listening to soothing music as you wind down.

• Stick with a routine that includes a predictable sleep schedule. Keep your meals, bedtime, and morning alarm consistent, even on weekends. Maintaining sleep patterns conditions your body to expect and react accordingly to appropriate times of rest and wakefulness.

  • If like many PSP your role requires shift work, refer to Managing Shift Work: Strategies for Public Safety Personnel for additional support with optimizing sleep routines.

• Use your bed for sleep. Keep electronics, food and any other stimulating activities out of your bed. This will cue your brain to sleep, and not prepare itself for eating, reading, TV, video games, studying, or chatting on the phone when you lie down.

• Remove electronics from your bedroom. Screens and electronics are an integral part of our daily lives. The activities associated with them, the light they emit, and the stimulus they provide make televisions, computers, tablets, phones, and other digital items a major hindrance to sleep. Try to unplug at least an hour before bed and keep electronics out of the bedroom. Keep clocks out of sight. Clock-watching may cause undue stress, making it harder to fall asleep.

• Keep your bedroom quiet, cool, and dark. Remove light and sound distraction and keep your space at a constant temperature to mimic your ideal sleeping conditions. If needed, consider carpeting to cancel noise, try a white noise machine or app, install light-blocking blinds, or use an eye mask to restrict visual distractions.

• Avoid caffeine and other stimulants. In the hours before bed, but also throughout the day, be mindful of your caffeine intake. While some people can enjoy a cup of coffee without repercussions, others may find the effects of caffeine linger well into the evening. Remember that coffee and tea aren’t the only caffeine-laden beverages. Many soft drinks, chocolate, common medications, and herbal remedies can also contain caffeine. Remember to read labels. Also, be mindful of alcohol use, as it has some stimulant effects.

• Exercise. A well-known stress-reliever is regular exercise (30 to 60 minutes, three times weekly). People who exercise regularly have better quality and deeper sleep, and are, overall, healthier. Exercise also combats obesity, a major risk factor in lack of sleep, sleep apnea, insomnia, and daytime sleepiness. Of course, exercise is a natural energy-booster as well, so be sure to get in that workout at least three hours before bedtime.

• Limit your napping. While a quick “power nap” may work wonders for some, when there are issues with sleep, it’s best to stay awake during the day. This makes it easier for your body and brain to anticipate and respond to a regular waking and sleep routine. If you absolutely must nap, keep it short; 15 to 20 minutes in the early afternoon—don't nap after 4:00pm.

• Avoid going to bed on a full – or empty – stomach. Balanced, healthy meals during the day will help keep your body and blood sugars balanced for optimal sleep. Try to keep meals scheduled and avoid eating large meals right before bedtime. If you’re hungry, have a light, nutritious snack (nuts, dairy, turkey) that won’t sit heavily in your stomach or boost your energy. To increase the likelihood of a good quality sleep, avoid consumption of high-fat foods like chips, ice cream, or fried foods before bed.

• Night-waking. If you wake up and can't fall back to sleep within 15 minutes or so, get out of bed. Go to another room and read or do other quiet activities until you feel tired.

Sleeping is such an important part of a mindful, healthy, balanced life and most of us could use more of it and its benefits, so make a point of implementing some new sleep strategies. For ongoing sleep difficulties, consult with your healthcare provider with your concerns and possible options.

References

1. Chattu, V.K., et al. (2018). “The global problem of insufficient sleep and its serious public health implications.” Healthcare (Basel). Accessed 14 March 2025.

2. National Sleep Foundation. (2024). “How much sleep do we really need?” Accessed 14 March 2025.

3. NIH. (n.d.). “Why sleep is important?” National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Accessed 14 March 2025.

4. Seaver, M. (2025). “8 common signs of sleep deprivation you shouldn’t ignore.” Accessed 14 March 2025.