By Ariani Mohd Nor
The worldwide pandemic has meant different things to different people – the rise of awareness on strict personal hygiene, the collapse of the economy, families being states and even nations apart; even more personally, the change of our sleep patterns.
The Circadian rhythm, also known as our sleep patterns, is our natural body clock that tells us when to sleep and stay awake. However, with our lack of natural light outside of home and our different stay-at-home schedules, the natural body clock may have also altered with our surroundings.
A lot of us may have noticed that since we have less outdoor activities to do, we tend to spend time around our comfort places at home. Even you may have noticed that you might be sleeping less or sleeping more than usual during the quarantine.
People may be losing or gaining more sleep because of many and diverse reasons – with the lack of motivation to wake up in the morning to commute, go to work and classes have made people lose track of the importance of time and productivity in the mornings. Others, like me, may have been losing sleep because of Netflix and the existence of social media.
According to Centre for Disease and Control Prevention (cdc.gov), the outbreak is indeed a stressful time to many of us and everyone reacts to stress differently. There have also been reports on coronavirus-induced anxiety that may have caused fragmented sleep schedules and insomnia within some people.
Improving your sleep quality
According to health.com, the most important thing in order to get anyone’s Circadian rhythms back on track is to keep a regular sleep-awake schedule. This means that a regular seven to nine hours in bed, and not more or less. Dr. Peters-Mathews, sleep physician, also advises to “go to bed feeling sleepy, but do not oversleep.”
While this may be difficult for most of us observing Ramadan when our nights are usually only five to six hours long, this can be fixed by a brief nap before dhuhr called the qailullah. In reference to a previous article, qailullah should only be about 10-15 minutes long in order to keep our bodies from feeling groggy.
During pre-dawn meals and break-fast, avoid foods and drinks that may contain heavy caffeine. Moving about and doing mild exercises during the day can also get the body to move around instead of oversleeping during sunlight hours.
Lastly, I personally advise those with social media-induced trouble sleeping to discipline themselves by avoiding using gadgets an hour before sleep and putting phones away from your beds to avoid the temptation of going on Instagram at late hours. While my advice is admittedly still a work in progress for me, it has definitely helped me gain a normal routine albeit slowly.
The coronavirus-anxiety may have affected people but let us all remind ourselves that there is a rainbow after every storm – and this too, shall pass.***