Ahh sleep! The beloved yet forever ignored pillar of good health and well-being. We always crave more of it, but never prioritize getting enough of it. Quality, restful sleep is fundamental to the functioning of pretty much everything - including your recovery. Country Road understands how important sleep is to your behavioral health. In this blog we’ll drift into sleep tracking and examine how paying attention to your rest could help your sobriety.
The Journey of Early Sobriety
Addiction takes quite the toll on the human body. The substances themselves wreak havoc on you physically (I’ve never met anyone who came into treatment winning awards for their healthy habits). The nature of addiction warps your mind and emotions. By the team most people are at the point that addiction treatment seems like a good idea, they’re hanging on by a thread physically, mentally, and emotionally. Sleep is where the restoration process starts. Monitoring your sleep and working to ensure quality sleep is often overlooked in early sobriety and in the first few months of treatment, but it is integral to long-term success.
The Importance of Healthy Sleep
Sleep health can be broken down into three main components:
- The amount of sleep you get
- The quality of the sleep you get ie uninterrupted and refreshing sleep
- Consistent sleep - having a normal sleep routine
A fundamental factor of sleep on recovery is the brain’s ability to remove toxins and initiate repairs in the body. During your sleep cycle, the brain changes its function to act more like a kidney, working to push toxins out of your body. It also catalogs what needs to be repaired in the body and brain and sends out the appropriate neurochemicals necessary to facilitate those biological responses. Lack of sleep exacerbates stress, anxiety, and depression.
Enter Sleep Tracking
Wearable technology, like Pretaa, has opened a whole new world of possibilities for improving treatment outcomes. Tracking your sleep during treatment allows medical and clinical staff to monitor all three components of healthy sleep which provides them, and you, valuable insights into your overall well-being and progress.
How Country Road Utilizes Sleep Tracking
1. Establish a Routine
It’s no surprise that addicts and alcoholics are rarely the most disciplined people. It wasn’t until I got sober that I saw the value in establishing a routine and staying consistent in my actions. Tracking your sleep encourages the establishment of a regular sleep schedule. Developing a normalized pattern of sleep can help to stabilize your mood, promote cognitive healing and growth, and contribute to better emotional resilience during the recovery process.
2. Identifying Triggers
Sleep tracking provides data that can reveal potential triggers which disrupt your sleep. These triggers, when identified, can reveal unresolved issues that can be processed with your clinical team. Perhaps you’re waking up every night from nightmares. While having bad dreams here and there may be normal, they shouldn’t be consistent and disruptive. Tracking your sleep helps us know what’s going on in your head in ways that you may not be able to verbalize. Once we’re all aware of what’s going on, we can work together to treat it and heal.
3. Monitor Progress
If we start tracking your sleep on day one of treatment then we can create a longitudinal map of your progress. We mark sobriety by milestones and we can do the same thing with sleep tracking. Positive changes in sleep patterns are a tangible and motivating sign of recovery and progress.
4. Addressing Co-Occurring Issues
Insomnia and sleep disorders are a set of co-occurring issues that often go under reported. Most people, myself included, have always struggled with falling asleep and staying asleep. It was part of why I started using in the first place. What I didn’t know was that insomnia and sleep disorders can be a symptom of a larger mental health issue that’s gone undiagnosed and treated. Sleep tracking helps us to recognize potential dual-diagnosis disorders early on which means more time to address them effectively. Who wants to get sober and still not be able to sleep? Not me!
5. Enhancing Self-Awareness
When we start paying attention to our sleep we usually start paying attention to other facets of our body and mind. Taking a deeper look at the needs of our body creates a self-awareness we may have lacked before (or ignored). Pretty soon that self-awareness extends beyond sleep into other areas of our lives. This can have a positive impact on lifestyle choices, relationships, and our overall well-being. Like I said in the beginning, restful sleep is fundamental to the healthy functioning of pretty much everything!
The Take-Away
Country Road is committed to more than just the treatment of addiction. We’re here to provide comprehensive and holistic support for the entire individual. That means mind, body and spirit. We understand that each person's experience is unique, and that's why we integrate innovative tools like sleep tracking into our recovery programs.
If you’re ready to get your sleep, and life back on track, give us a call. We’d love to hear from ya!