Do you struggle with restless nights and daytime fatigue due to Parkinson's? You're not alone! This episode of Live Parkinson's - Live and Exceptional Life dives deep into the world of sleep hygiene, offering practical strategies specifically tailored to manage Parkinson's symptoms and improve your sleep quality.
Learn how to:
Craft a Consistent Sleep Schedule: Discover the power of going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, even on weekends.
Develop a Relaxing Bedtime Routine: Wind down before bed with calming activities like reading, taking a warm bath, or gentle stretching.
Create a Sleep-Promoting Environment: Optimize your bedroom for darkness, quiet, and a cool temperature. Invest in blackout curtains, earplugs, and consider a comfortable mattress and pillows.
Fuel Your Body for Sleep: Learn healthy eating habits and how to avoid heavy meals or caffeine before bed.
Move Your Body, But Wisely: Discover the benefits of regular exercise for better sleep, while understanding the importance of avoiding strenuous activity close to bedtime.
We'll also explore helpful tips for managing nighttime urgency, tremors, and vivid dreams often associated with Parkinson's. Take back control of your nights and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle your day!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only is not intended to treat or diagnose Parkinson's Disease. Please ensure that you are following the treatment plan developed by your doctor. Please ensure before starting anything new you get approval from your doctor. The information being provided is based on my own personal experiences and does not guarantee that it will benefit everyone.
Do you struggle with restless nights and daytime fatigue due to Parkinson's? You're not alone! This episode of Live Parkinson's - Live and Exceptional Life dives deep into the world of sleep hygiene, offering practical strategies specifically tailored to manage Parkinson's symptoms and improve your sleep quality.
Learn how to:
Craft a Consistent Sleep Schedule: Discover the power of going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, even on weekends.
Develop a Relaxing Bedtime Routine: Wind down before bed with calming activities like reading, taking a warm bath, or gentle stretching.
Create a Sleep-Promoting Environment: Optimize your bedroom for darkness, quiet, and a cool temperature. Invest in blackout curtains, earplugs, and consider a comfortable mattress and pillows.
Fuel Your Body for Sleep: Learn healthy eating habits and how to avoid heavy meals or caffeine before bed.
Move Your Body, But Wisely: Discover the benefits of regular exercise for better sleep, while understanding the importance of avoiding strenuous activity close to bedtime.
We'll also explore helpful tips for managing nighttime urgency, tremors, and vivid dreams often associated with Parkinson's. Take back control of your nights and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle your day!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only is not intended to treat or diagnose Parkinson's Disease. Please ensure that you are following the treatment plan developed by your doctor. Please ensure before starting anything new you get approval from your doctor. The information being provided is based on my own personal experiences and does not guarantee that it will benefit everyone.
Hello and welcome to Live Parkinson's Live an Exceptional Life. I'm your host, chris Custombatter, and I've been living an exceptional life with Parkinson's for the past 14 years. The mission of this podcast is to help as many people living with Parkinson's lead a great quality of life. Today's topic is Parkinson's Sleep Wows Conquer Nighttime with Powerful Sleep Hygiene Tips. Are you struggling to get a good night's sleep with Parkinson's? You're not alone. Rest of sleep is a common symptom, but it doesn't have to control your life. In this episode, we'll explore the concept of sleep hygiene and its key components. We'll learn how to adjust your sleep routine to work with Parkinson's and discover practical tips to help you drift off peacefully and wake feeling refreshed. Now I attended a talk given by a naval officer years ago when he said, when he gives a talk, that he always uses the same format and he says tell him what you're going to tell him, tell him and then tell him what you told him. I really like that. So I'm going to start this episode by telling you what I'm going to tell you. We're going to start part one with understanding sleep hygiene what it is and why we should practice good sleep hygiene. Then, in part two, we'll examine the key components of sleep hygiene for Parkinson's, and then slide into part three by addressing common sleep issues with Parkinson's, and then round it all out by sharing some bonus resources for additional information on sleep hygiene, and maybe some Parkinson's technologies and tips as well. So are you ready to get started? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. See, it's working already.
Speaker 1:
Let's pull back the curtain and start by understanding this mysterious sounding concept called sleep hygiene. Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear the word hygiene, I think a cleanliness like brushing your teeth for good oral hygiene or showering and feeling fresh. Is that what we're talking about with the sleep hygiene? Well, no, not exactly. Sleep hygiene refers to the healthy habits, behaviors and environmental factors that contribute to a good night's sleep. By practicing good sleep hygiene, you can improve the quality and the duration of your sleep. Okay, that makes sense, but why is sleep hygiene important for people with Parkinson's? Sleep hygiene is crucial for people with Parkinson's because it significantly impacts our overall health, well-being and symptom management. Now, the reason sleep hygiene makes sense is because in Parkinson's, often people's sleep is disrupted in their sleep patterns due to alter brain regulation and nighttime awakenings, and then, finally, poor sleep quality can have detrimental effects on your daytime functioning and your quality of life. They include excessive daytime sleepiness from sleep disorders, invertebrate sleep cycles, where daytime and napping disrupts nighttime sleep.
Speaker 1:
And my personal favorite, and one I experience daily, is the early morning awakening which is common in PD and often causes you to adjust your sleep schedule. Yes, the eyes start opening at 2 am and you struggle to try to sleep until 2.30 or 3. And then you can get angry about it or I just say, well, I might as well get up. But I always like to turn that frown upside down and look at the positives. I look at it as a great quality time to write down what I'm grateful for and to work on hobbies. Although you know, practicing guitar at 3 o'clock in the morning is my wife is probably going to kill me if I did that. So I can't practice guitar, but it gives me an opportunity to learn new things, so I can read, I can take online courses, but I spend a lot of time preparing for the podcast and some of the YouTube videos that I make. So it's not all a bad thing. So you can, if you happen to wake up early, try to turn that anger or frustration into positives, learn new things, learn new hobbies, and away you go, and pretty soon you learn to appreciate the quiet times at that time of the morning. All right, but I digress.
Speaker 1:
Sleep hygiene can help promote better sleep for better overall health and better mood and a better you. So let's switch gears, now that we understand what sleep hygiene is, and take a look at the key components of sleep hygiene for Parkinson's. Number one and this is probably one of the key components is a regular sleep schedule. You mean I should schedule bedtime? Yep, that's what I'm saying. Wait, how do you schedule sleep? Well, I'm glad you ask. It simply means it's important that you go to bed at the same time and try to get up at the same time every day, even on the weekends. So what you want to prevent are I go to bed at 9 o'clock one night and then the next night I go to bed at midnight and then I'm waking up at all different hours, because that's gonna cause some problems which we're gonna talk about here in a minute.
Speaker 1:
Here are some reasons why it's important to Regular schedule your sleep. First, our bodies have an internal clock, which is called our circadian rhythm, and that helps us follow our regular sleep schedule and helps us align our sleep wake cycle with the natural, with this natural rhythm. And then, when we maintain consistency, our bodies knows when it's time to release hormones like melatonin, which promotes sleep, and cortisol, which keeps us alert. So we want to make sure that we're releasing melatonin at night, when we need to go to sleep, and then cortisol During the day, when we need to stay alert. And if we don't have a regular sleep schedule, we can upset that balance and end up where we're releasing some cortisol at night and that's what's keeping us awake and then melatonin during the day when we we want to be alert. So it's important that you schedule a regular schedule bedtime and Regular schedule wake-up time. So maybe it's you go to bed at 10 o'clock and you get up at five o'clock in the morning. That would give you seven hours of sleep and hopefully you'll feel good with that. If not, then schedule what feels good to you in terms of sleep, both duration and quality. If you start to change and get off by going to bed at different times and getting up at all different hours, you're really going to mess up that natural circadian rhythm. So it's very important that you try to maintain a regular schedule to keep your your natural rhythm in in sync and that the hormones melatonin and Cortisol are released when they should be all right.
Speaker 1:
Second, going to bed and waking at consistent times helps improve your sleep quality. Our bodies get used to the routine and it makes it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. Now, irregular sleep patterns can lead to fragmented sleep, and fragmented sleep is when you go to sleep, you wake up, you go to sleep, you wake up, you go to sleep, you wake up, and you don't get a very restful night sleep, and it also leads to daytime groggyness. If you can have a regular scheduled time, your bodies get used to the routine and it's going to help you with both your sleep quality and your sleep duration. And then, third, a regular sleep schedule enhances sleep efficiency. Say what sleep efficiency? Yes, you heard that right, it means spending more time in restorative, deep sleep and less time tossing and turning. So how efficient your sleep is is how well you stay asleep and you go through the different sleep cycles Versus tossing and turning or waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping.
Speaker 1:
Fourth, consistency and sleep helps to maintain stable energy levels throughout the day when we go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. We we feel more refreshed and alert, am I right? And Then, fifth, erratic sleep schedules can impact your mood, leading to irritability, anxiety and even depression. Now think about it. When you don't get enough sleep, what typically happens? You tend to get angry Easily. You tend to get frustrated when you're trying to do simple tasks and you may feel anxious. So we don't want to get on this door call Now. So the sleep schedule is important. Productivity and cognitive function need adequate rest. So adequate rest is going to improve your cognitive function, your memory and your concentration. So a sleep schedule is going to help you Ensure that you're keeping your body in a natural rhythm and that you're it's going to help you with your total overall well-being as well.
Speaker 1:
And then, finally, number seven didn't think there would be that, many did you is hormonal balance. Sleep is essential for Hormonal balance. Disrupted sleep can affect the hormones related to your appetite, stress and growth. Unless can lead to weight gain because your hormones Geratin and leptin, which control hunger and fullness, get out of whack and the next thing you know You're eating two bowls of life cereal at 3 am. Okay, I admit it. You caught me. Yes, I've done this in the past, where I get up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I say to myself, hmm, I'm hungry. Maybe I wasn't hungry, but and then I started eating a bowl or two of cereal when I didn't really need to eat a bowl or two of cereal. But if I had developed a regular sleep schedule, that would hopefully help prevent me eating at 3 o'clock in the morning. So please, as a part of my public service announcement, please start a sleep schedule. Your body, in your mind, will thank you for it that.
Speaker 1:
Now that we have our sleep schedule, it's time to move on to number two on our list of key components of sleep hygiene. So let's have a round of applause for number two, which is relaxing bedtime routine. Now, this involves calming activities to help turn off your mind from all the bombardment and mental stimulation and or overstimulation from work or some of your daily activities. Calming activities before bed can include things like reading, taking a warm bath or gently stretching before bed. Now I like to play some slow songs on the guitar and then tie some flies To me. That's relaxing and it's a good relaxing bedtime routine where I'm not using a computer, watching TV or getting on my phone or iPad.
Speaker 1:
Meditation should not include computers, laptops, tablets, phones or TV time, because these emit blue light, and blue light's been shown to reduce or delay the natural production of melatonin in the evening, and it decreases the feelings of sleepiness. So if our melatonin is going down, which causes us to want to sleep, then we're going to be more alert at the time we need to go to bed, and that's not what we want, according to an article how Electronics Affect Sleep that was published on sleepfoundationorg, and the article states that blue light can reduce the amount of time you spend in short wave and rapid eye movement, two stages of the sleep cycle that are vital for cognitive functioning. Now the authors offer some tips for using technology at night, which I will happily share with you. Avoid computers, smartphones and other blue light emitting devices in the hours leading up to bed time. Now, my sleep specialist told me a minimum of an hour before bed is a key, but more if possible, but a minimum would be an hour before bed. Now I'm honest, I don't always adhere to this principle when I know I should, and sometimes I get caught up in watching funny YouTube videos or rolling and looking at something related to the Pittsburgh Penguins or Pittsburgh Steelers online to see who they're trading or did they win the game or what the schedule is. So I think it's important that I try not to spend as much time on the electronics, and here are some tips that they provide.
Speaker 1:
First, decrease your daytime and your nighttime electronic use if possible. Second, establish a relaxing bedtime routine. They say the hour before bed should consist of relaxing activities that don't involve devices with screens. And then, third, make the bedroom a screen free zone. Now, a lot of people like to put a TV in their bedroom and watch TV as they go to sleep, but it's emitting the blue light which is going to affect the melatonin, and it may cause you to have fragmented sleep, where you're waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping all night long. And then, fourth, if you do have your phone near your bed and you need it because of work or you need it in case someone calls with an emergency maybe you have elderly parents that are in assisted living or in a nursing home or live by themselves and you need to have the phone in case of an emergency Use a nighttime mode on your phone or laptop, and what it does is. It makes the viewing easier on the eyes before bed. And then, finally, you can invest in blue light blocker glasses. Now, the orange tinted glasses are specifically designed to shield your eyes from blue light emissions. I've actually have two sets of these that I use. Especially being up at three o'clock in the morning, I like to turn one light on. I have a clip on pair for one of my older pair glasses and then I have another pair that are non-prescription but they're orange and they fit right over my glasses and they help block some of the blue light that's emitted and that it's going to have an effect on my melatonin hormones.
Speaker 1:
All right, moving on to number three on the key component list of sleep hygiene is creating a sleep promoting environment. Now, ideally, you want to optimize three areas darkness, quiet and cool temperatures. Now let's look at darkness first. The darker the room, the better for sleep. However, there is just a teeny weeny problem with that, and that is people with Parkinson's often awake in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and if it's too dark, it could result in falls. So it's important that you make it as dark as you can possibly have it, but at the same time have either a nightlight or something that is going to allow you, if you need to use the bathroom, that you're not going to fall and be injured. That would be the best thing to do. In terms of darkness, now quiet, thank you.
Speaker 1:
When you optimize for quiet, there are a number of things that you can do. First of all, you can put a lot of sound absorbing objects like carpets, throw, pillows and other soft furnishings in the room. They help to absorb the sound. Second and this is one that I use is a white noise machine, and they're a great option. My wife and I use a white noise machine on our two rescue boxer dogs get nervous with storms or strong winds so that they're not up pacing around. The white noise cuts down and really makes it difficult to hear those external noises and allows them to get a good night's sleep, even on the lower settings. So it helps to keep out that external noise. And also, they really come in handy on the 4th of July, because my dogs hate fireworks and people are always shooting off fireworks and with the loud booms and bangs they just really get beside themselves and are not able to sleep. Now I personally recommend a white noise machine, and they not only come with white noise, but they also come with a lot of other soothing sounds, for instance, ocean waves, the rain, falling rain on a tin roof. There's a lot of different sounds. I think some of them come with 23 or more different sounds that you can use.
Speaker 1:
Now, while some people like their room perfectly quiet, some prefer to listen to music or meditation or calming stories. So some people will put on someone reading meditation steps, or someone else will listen to someone that's reading calming stories, and they use that to help them fall asleep. It's your personal preference. Now, when I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, I have my phone beside the bed turned over, but I have a number of playlists that I created from the Apple Music and what I do is they range from anywhere from two hours to seven hours and, depending on when I wake up in the middle of the night, that's one of the playlists that I choose. But I tried to be a little bit creative with the playlist names and I have some like ODark 30, no Sleepy for Me, dust to Dawn, and so when I can't sleep, I'll put my headphones in and I listen to the music on a real low volume and a lot of times what will happen is I'll hear the first song, maybe the second song and then, next thing, you know, I've fallen asleep, and then it'll help me stay asleep for a while. So it's a great way for me to help overcome, when I have sleep fragmentation, when I keep waking up to help me fall back to sleep. So that's just another option that I wanted to throw out there.
Speaker 1:
In terms of number three, which is cooler temperatures, typically people sleep better in a room with cooler temperatures than when they're hot. I typically hear a lot of people when they go to a hotel room saying my gosh, my hotel room was so hot last night I couldn't sleep. Or maybe you have your spouse will say it was so hot in here, I couldn't sleep last night. So typically when the temperature is cooler, then you sleep better. Now, when I was in college, my roommate and I we used to keep our window open even in the wintertime and we'd set a glass of water on the window so when it would be frozen in the morning, but it was great to sleep because the room was really cold and you could cover up. So it was almost like sleeping in a giant cooler. So now I prefer to set my thermostat at around 65 Fahrenheit, and I like it because it's nice and cool. So the three areas that you want to try to set up in terms of a restful environment are the darkness, quiet and then the cool temperatures.
Speaker 1:
All right, next up on our component list for sleeping hygiene are exercise. Oh, you knew I was going to say it, didn't you? Yes, yep, that's right, we can't get away from it. Exercise is so important in your Parkinson's journey and if you listen to any of my other podcasts, you're probably saying, if he says this one more time, but I'm going to say it one more time exercise is so important. So, yes, exercise is one of the key components of sleep hygiene as well. So for best results, try not to exercise close to bedtime. So you may not want to go. I think I'll go for a five mile run or I'm going to go take a group fitness class at 8pm and then I want to try to go to bed at 9, because your body is going to be all ramped up and have those positive neurotransmitters flying through the body and it's going to make it difficult to sleep. So the earlier you can exercise, the better. You want to try to stay away from exercising too close to bedtime because it's going to make it difficult to fall asleep. But again, remember, exercise is very important. You heard it here first.
Speaker 1:
Okay, moving on diet, yes, diet can affect your sleep. The quality and the quantity of food can be a major contributor. You want to try to eat healthy, healthy foods and avoid heavy meals or caffeine before bedtime. How many times have you eaten a great big pasta dinner later in the evening and then you can't sleep because you're so full or you just feel miserable? So if you eat later, healthier meals before you go to bed, it's really going to help to keep you asleep. And then also try to stay away from acidic foods like tomato sauces and citrus fruits in chocolate, as they could cause some people get heartburn and that can interfere with your sleep as well. And alcohol as well. Make sure that you try to avoid alcohol right before bed, because it can act as both a depression and a stimulant. So it's going to you're going to fall asleep quickly, but then it's going to cause you to keep waking up during the night. So that's diet.
Speaker 1:
Now next up is naps, and they're very important, and if you are having trouble sleeping and having a lot of daytime sleepiness or fatigue, try to take a nap. No more than 30 minutes, though, because a lot of people want to take a nap and then sleep for two or three hours, and then what happens is you get into REM sleep cycle and then, if you notice if you get too much sleep, if you take a two hour nap, a lot of times you feel groggy, or when you got up, then when you went to take the nap. So it's important that, if you're going to take a nap, 20 to 30 minutes is perfect, the perfect power nap, because you wake up, you don't hit the REM sleep cycle, but you wake up feeling refreshed, and it gives you just that boost to energy that you're going to need to keep you moving. Also, make sure that you don't take naps too late in the afternoon, because then that's going to affect your nighttime sleep. I usually try to take a nap around noon myself. Now today I did take a little quick nap about three o'clock and hopefully that won't affect my sleep for tonight. And then, finally, talk to your doctor about managing your medication schedule. Sometimes your medication can help you awake as well. So, depending on your medication fluctuation, so talk to your doctor and tell them what type of symptoms you're having and they're going to help you out with that, and then they'll also help you when the best time for you to take a nap in as well.
Speaker 1:
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Speaker 1:
Slash exceptional life. That's audible trialcom. Slash exceptional life. Now put that in the podcast description as well. But if you decide not to become a member of audible, you still get to keep the free audio book. Now to be completely transparent and it's you know I believe in personal integrity. If you sign up for a free audio book and the free 30 day trial, I receive a small commission from audible that I use to support this podcast and the website. So if you decide to take advantage of the free offer, I thank you for supporting this podcast, but you're under no obligation to purchase anything, thank you.
Speaker 1:
So let's change directions and address some common sleep issues with Parkinson's and solutions to help overcome them. What are we waiting for? Let's overcome some challenges and get a good night's sleep, shall we? Okay? The first one is restlessness and tremors. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I have a lot of times I'll get in bed and my whole body will start to have dyskinesias and or I'll have tremors, and it's very difficult to try to sleep when you're flopping around in bed. So typically what I end up doing is getting up for an hour or two till they go away, and then I try to go back to sleep and I've already lost hours of valuable sleep. And then one of the things to help with this is to consider is asking your doctor if a medication addition and or change would help. They'll listen to your symptoms like when are you having them, how long do they last, what's the severity, how much of an impact does it have on your sleep? And then they'll develop a treatment plan to help you address both restlessness and tremors. And then also be sure that you tell your doctor about any over-the-counter medications you're taking for sleep, because they may be interacting with your Parkinson's med and causing other motor symptoms and fluctuations.
Speaker 1:
Number two another favorite of mine, because I happen to do this every night as well urinary urgency, or nocturia, and that's getting up two or more times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Yes, I have that as well, to be completely honest. And then what this does? It interrupts the sleep cycle, because waking up to use the restroom every couple of hours is going to break the specific sleep cycles that we go through. To help with this issue and to help overcome it, there's a couple things you can do. One is you can restrict your fluid intake at night, try not to consume liquids at least two hours before bedtime and stay away from or limit alcohol and caffeine, because they can both act as stimulants and keep you awake as well, you want to manage the use of diuretics, so if you take a diuretic, which is pill or medication to help get rid of excess fluid, try not to take it within six hours of bedtime, because if you take a diuretic an hour or two before bed, you're going to be getting up several times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. So that's one of the things that you want to talk to your doctor about to help you manage your when to take your diuretic. And then number three is you can elevate your legs or use compression socks. This helps to redistribute the fluids back into your bloodstream and therefore it reduces the need to pass your urine in the middle of the night. Yay, so that way we don't have to get up multiple times in the middle of the night. Four is enjoy afternoon naps. Naps can help liquids to be absorbed back into the bloodstream. And then, plus, naps help you feel better at night and when you don't sleep. So if you don't sleep the night before a nap, it's going to make you feel great. So that's four ways that you can overcome urinary urgency.
Speaker 1:
And then the last one is vivid dreams. Now, I don't know how many of you have had vivid dreams, but having Parkinson's for 14 years. I've had a few, but two of the ones I can remember I wanted to share with you real quickly. One is that I was staying at my parents and they didn't have air conditioning and it was super hot summer night and so I decided to go down and sleep in their living room, which was off the kitchen and I had my head on. I was sleeping on the couch and my head was towards the kitchen and the front door was on the other side of the house. I was having a dream and I heard somebody open the front door and this big, burly, ugly looking creature of a man was coming into the house and I could see that he was coming across and he was looking for me. And he started to come across the kitchen and I could hear him breathing heavy and, but I couldn't move my body, I couldn't get up off the couch and all I could do was kind of look at, try to look back towards the top of my head to see where he was. And I could hear him coming, I could hear him walking across the floor, but I still couldn't move. And you know you're starting to panic because you can't move and you're thinking to yourself oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And he kept getting closer and closer and then, just as he came around the side of the couch in my dream, I did a great big karate kick. And then that woke me up. But that was one that really scared me and that was one where I actually acted out my dream, where the person was attacking me and then I had to defend myself.
Speaker 1:
And the other one happened about four or five months ago. I went to bed and right after I went to sleep I was in this beautiful valley and it was this beautiful landscape I was watching. It was all these different vibrant colors and it was just really awesome to look around and see all the you know, the beauty of everything and how colorful it was. Well, then, all of a sudden, the landscape started to spin real slowly and then it started to pick up speed and then, within it seemed like five seconds, I was in total darkness and I was just floating. I couldn't move my arms or my legs, I couldn't talk and I just felt like I was in this real dark void and it was like it was scary. It was like I was just looking for someone to come. You know, help me, because I just felt hopeless, I was in this darkness and I couldn't move anything. And then finally I woke up and but I mean, my heart was racing and it was well. It was beautiful in the beginning of the dream, it was terrible at the end of the dream.
Speaker 1:
So if any of you have vivid dreams, you'll know that they can be very scary and they also vivid dreams, cause us sometimes to talk. In our sleep we may shout, kick, flail and act out our dreams, and this can also include what they call REM sleep behavior disorder, and this oftentimes leads to people sleeping in different rooms because you don't want to injure your spouse or another person. So if this occurs on a regular basis, a lot of times they'll sleep in separate rooms. But some of the ways you can help overcome this challenge of vivid dreams and flailing around is to use pillows and blankets to create a safe space around your bed. You may put some extra blankets on the side of the bed in case you're one of the people that falls out of bed or as you're flailing. So pillows and blankets are a great way to do that. Some people they even recommend, if they have severe enough, that they sleep in sleeping bags so that they can't move their, they can't kick their arms and legs and flail around and cause injury to themselves or others. And then you want to avoid drinking alcohol is that can trigger an RBD episode. And then, finally, remove any sharp objects from around the bed to prevent injury. So if you have, like, glass corners or sharp corners, you want to cover those up so that if a person is flailing around that it doesn't cause them any bodily injury.
Speaker 1:
Okay, as we close this out, remember, a good night's sleep is within your reach and by implementing these sleep hygiene practices and working with your doctor, you can create a personalized sleep routine that supports Parkinson's management. Now, don't underestimate the power of a quality sleep. It's going to fuel your energy, it's going to improve your mood and it's going to help your bodily function at its best. So here's some action I want you to take tonight Do the key components of the sleep hygiene that we discussed and choose one or two areas to focus on. Maybe it was setting a consistent sleep schedule or creating a relaxing bedtime routine. Remember, it's the small changes that are going to make a big difference. So start out with one to two things that we talked about in terms of the components, whether it's exercise, diet, creating an environment that's suitable for sleep, where it's dark, it's quiet and it has cool temperatures. So, whatever it happens to be, start out with one or two and then build on that and you'll find that sleep hygiene, an effective sleep hygiene program with people with Parkinson's, is going to help you get a better night's sleep, both in terms of quality and quantity, which, in terms, is going to give you a better quality of life.
Speaker 1:
Remember, you're not alone in this journey. Join the Parkinson's community on fanlistcom slash exceptional life and I'll put a link in this description below, but that was fanlistcom slash exceptional life and you can leave me questions, comments, challenges, success stories, anything you'd like to hear. Maybe there's a certain podcast topic I'd love to hear from you, because I want to make sure that I'm providing information and podcasts that meet your needs and help you on a daily basis. So if you have things that you really the burning questions or burning topics that you'd like to hear, please share them with me. I would love to do a podcast on that, because what I'm trying to help as many people as possible, and I can do that if I know exactly what you're looking for and if you visit the chat room, share your challenges and success stories, and it's important to connect with others who understand the challenges asleep, share your experiences, offer encouragement and learn from each other, and together we can all get a good night's sleep tonight and the next night and the night after that. So I hope this podcast was helpful.
Speaker 1:
Please visit me on YouTube at live Parkinson's live an exceptional life tremors to triumph, and subscribe and like the videos if you like them, and I'd love to have you as part of the community. We're trying to build a great community where we can all share success stories, and if you want to learn more about me and my four strategies, visit my website, live Parkinson'scom, and I'm also in the process of creating a free symptom tracker that you can use to track your symptoms to help you when you visit your physician on your next visit. So I just want to thank you for listening. It really touches my heart to be able to connect with other people and I really appreciate you listening to the program, and I hope to get to meet you all at some point, whether it's through a live session or maybe out at a Parkinson's symposium or something like that, but I look forward to seeing you on future podcasts and thank you again. I really appreciate all you do and have a spectacular day, thanks.