Colchester Physiotherapy

29/09/2023

🗓️ Saturday 7th October 2.30pm-3.30pm
Location:

It doesn’t matter how good your exercise routine is or how good your nutrition is, if you don’t have good sleep you aren’t living a happy or healthy life.

Regardless of your circumstance you are able to sleep well, this seminar will show you how!

Some of the things we will cover include:
⚠️ The four non-negotiables for better sleep
🦄 Why 8 hours of sleep a night is a myth
❗️ The key things that all those sleep blogs and sleep hygiene list miss out
📲 Why your sleep tracker may be detrimental to your sleep

🔗 BOOKING LINK IN BIO

15/02/2023

We can separate sleep disorders into 2 categories….

1️⃣ People who have difficult getting to sleep (DIS - Difficulty Initiating Sleep)
2️⃣ People who wake frequently throughout the night (DMS - difficulty maintain sleep)

People who have difficulty initiating sleep should look at:
• Routine
• Thought processes
• Sleeping environment

People who have difficulty maintaining sleep should look at:
• Hormone system
• Caffeine and alcohol intake/timing
• Timing of food & fluids
• Environmental changes throughout the night

31/01/2023

Artificial light isn’t enough to set our biological clock but it is enough to disrupt it.

Light exposure to the retina helps to programme our biological clock.

However it is subject to retinal sensitivity. In the mornings the sensitivity if the retina is low - this means it takes a lot of light to set our biological clock. This can only achieved from daylight ☀️ (viewed outside, not through a window)

Even on a cloudy 🌧️ overcast day more light will enter our eyes than we can get in a brightly lit room 💡.

At night 🌝 things are different…..our retinal sensitivity has changed (the retina is much more sensitive). This means that artificial light will be enough to disrupt our biological clock - this can lead to poor sleep.

To ensure that our biological lock runs smoothly:

⛅️ Get outside within 30-45 minutes of waking
🌞 Get as much morning light as possible
💻 Avoid artificial light between the hours of 10pm and 4am

24/01/2023

It isn’t just the light from screens which disrupts our sleep

Screens📱can be disruptive of our sleep on a number of fronts, I’ve covered in other posts how the light from screens can disrupt our internal clock (which plays a crucial role in our sleep-wake cycle). But the content of what we view can also have a big impact on our sleep 😴.

Much of what we view through our screens leads to some form of psychological arousal - creating either states of excitement 😃 or distress😖.

These states are linked with elevated cortisol levels - even small changes in arousal levels can lead to an elevation in cortisol.

Cortisol is the hormone that helps to wake us up and keep us awake and alert. It follows a 24 hour pattern where we ideally we want cortisol levels to peak around 30-45 minutes after waking and be low in the evening and through the night.

Cortisol ‘spikes’ at night can both stop us getting to sleep and cause us to wake through the night.

⚠️ To help avoid these spikes try not to use your screen between the hours of 10pm and 4am

19/01/2023

Why blue light filters won’t help with sleep disorders

The rationale behind blue light filters makes sense at face value…..blue light that signals us to be awake and filtering out this light in the evening will help us to sleep 💤 .

This is in part true, blue light does signal us to be awake, but crucially so do other colours 🌈in the light spectrum.

So removing the blue light from our screens does not entirely remove the signal to remain awake.

This combined with increased retinal sensitivity at night (covered in my last post) mean that a blue light filter is highly unlikely to solve a sleep disorder.

On top of this, the content of what we look via our screens at night can also have a big impact on our sleep (I will cover this in future posts).

⚠️ Avoid exposure to screens between 10pm and 4am to minimise their impact on your sleep-wake cycle

16/01/2023

Why are screens so problematic for sleep?

Part of the reason that screens disrupt our sleep is the content, which often stimulates our brain 🧠 . Sometimes this stimulation is positive and sometimes it is negative however both types of stimulation have potential to disturb our sleep….I’ll cover this in other posts at some point.

In terms of the light 💡 it comes down to the retina 👁️ . The sensitivity of the retina changes as the day progresses. In the morning it isn’t very sensitive to light, at night it is.

When we consider this from an evolutionary/functional perspective this makes perfect sense: less sensitivity in the morning helps to us see in the bright light of the day and more sensitivity at night helps us to see when it is dark.

But…..the retina also plays a key role in setting our internal clock which in turn dictates when we should be awake and when we should be asleep.

In the mornings due to the decreased retinal sensitivity it takes a lot of light to set our internal clock ⏰ , but in the evenings it takes very little light to disrupt this clock.

This is why screens are so disruptive to sleep if we view them at night.

In the next post I will cover blue light filters and why they are (very) unlikely help with sleep disorders.

09/01/2023

What we do whilst we are awake dictates:

😴 How easily we get to sleep
❓Whether (or not) we stay asleep throughout the night
⚡️How we feel when we wake up the morning after

Sleep therapy sessions are now available (see link in bio)…..

07/01/2023

Patiently waiting for playtime before clinic starts this morning

30/12/2022

Sleep therapy sessions are now live! 🤩

The perfectionist on me has meant that it has taken a little while to get this service fully up and running….but it is now live.

I’ve been delivering sleep therapy sessions for some time now (I just haven’t been advertising the service). The results I have had in clinic have been amazing!

So if you have issues with sleep 😴 or simply want to improve the sleep 🛌 you are already getting please reach out, you won’t regret it!!!

27/05/2022

I've worked with Fiona for many years, highly highly recommmended.

Find relief from pain and injury with a deep tissue or sports massage 😌

Both types of massage will have a wide range of benefits on your body. From pain and stress reduction to increased flexibility and mobility.

With 21 years of practising massage, I have had the pleasure of working with a varied client base and treating different problems. This gives me an enormous amount of experience for treating a wide variety of conditions, complaints, injuries and maintenance needs.

To book or find out more call me on 07971 660127 or visit: https://bit.ly/3Gqs5uf

06/05/2022

We use the disc for precision heel work with Howie’s training.

Today he wanted to bring his 🐻 toy with him to his training session 🐶

23/02/2022

Standing shoulder rotations

Key points:
✅ Keep the movement relaxed, don’t force the shoulder to move (try to solve the movement with relaxation). A good way to relax the shoulder is to relax the fingers and wrist
✅ Don’t let the shoulder tip forwards as you do the exercise - this normally happens if you try to push the movement. Use your other hand to monitor the shoulder position to help you spot if you are doing this.