Sleep and its affect mental and physical health

The end of Mental Health Week and the start of Carers Week was the perfect combination for a show about sleep. My guests was Rachel Mascord who works as a dentist as well as studying for a masters. Rachel had insomnia from the age of 7 years old and struggled with it for the next 25 years or more. Now 7 years into a much more stable evening and sleep routine, Rachel is keen to share her experience so that it can support others.

I would love to encapsulate all I spoke about with my guest Rachel Mascord but there was just so much I could never do it justice so you will simply have to listen!

Just a few of the things that can affect our sleep?

• Hormones
• Glands
• Emotions
• Light
• Exercise
• Food
• Anxiety
• Stress

It is well worth taking the time to look at what we are doing in our evenings, how we are doing it and when we are doing it. We can work with doctors and other support staff to play an equal part in our wellbeing. It feels very empowering to start to see 

Sleep is really important -
​that is when the amazing night shift get to work on all the repairs and organising that our brain and body couldn't do when we were awake. 

Being awake is very different from being asleep and can result in a feeling of agitation, thoughts building and exaggerating. During this section of the program, Rachel gives some great pointers for how to support yourself and also some tips for how to review your evening and your day so you can introduce elements of self care in order to support yourself in your sleep.

Being awake is very different from not being able to sleep

All too often carers put themselves at the bottom of the list of priorities - in this show we demonstrate just how important it is to be right at the top and the small simple things you can do to ensure you take care of you so that you can take care of others. There are a number of support groups and organisations that support you as a carer. I have listed a number of them below.

Resources

http://hornsbykuringgaiwomensshelter.com.au/blog/ Check out their Coffee Crew initiative and details of their West Pymble House and Garden Stall
http://www.streetwork.org.au/our-services/ Find out about Glam and Grunge and support for young people at risk.
http://kyds.org.au/kyds-term-3-newsletter/ Programs for parents and young people
http://www.carersnsw.org.au - support network for carers in NSW
http://www.youngcarers.net.au A national network for young carers
http://headspace.org.au
http://youngcarersresource.org - international resource
http://www.copmi.net.au - a service supporting young people with a parent who has a mental illness
http://www.unimedliving.com/self-care A website dedicated to articles on self care
http://www.triplehfm.com.au - Golf day, scholarship

With thanks to...

As ever, enormous thanks go to Triple H Fm for use of their airwaves for the live broadcast of this show, to Rachel Mascord for being my guest and to Glorious Music for the use of their music in my show and podcast.