We know how important sleep is to every part of your health. This includes your mental and physical well-being. Not only does it help you fight off common colds, but it also helps with heart disease. It’s essential for improving your mental focus and keeping you emotionally healthy.
You want to understand the right sleep hygiene practices to integrate into your life. There are certain things you can do to improve your sleep including creating an optimized environment and more. However, you may have tried a lot of things and still aren’t getting the sleep you deserve. Here are some of the best tips to improve your sleep efforts.
Tips To Improve Sleep:
1. Relaxation Exercises
One of the things you can integrate into your routine is relaxation exercises. This is a good way to get yourself to sleep when you find it difficult to do so. If you find yourself laying in bed and tossing and turning, it can make you even more anxious. One of the best things you can do to avoid this is by turning your clock away from you. It’s easy to find yourself staring at the clock and counting down the hours until you have to wake up and go to work. Rather than thinking about how long you’ve been awake and trying to go to sleep, concentrate on relaxing. There are various ways you can relax.
– Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercises
Incorporating a professional muscle relaxation exercise is a good one. This is where you will go around and tense up your muscles and release them. You will start with your feet and work your way up to your neck and shoulder area. This can help you release a lot of built-up tension from your muscles.
– Mindfulness and Meditation
Another good option would be meditation. This is a great option to get yourself more relaxed because it helps you get present at the moment. This can keep you from worrying about what happened in the past and what’s to come in the future. Practicing mindfulness is a great way to get yourself in a good state of mind for optimal sleep.
You can try to incorporate these muscle relaxation strategies into your routine if you aren’t able to get to sleep. You’ll want to make them a part of your regular bedtime routine.
2. Try To Do An Activity You Find Boring
The last thing you want to do is lay in bed when you are unable to sleep. This is only going to make it increasingly difficult to get to sleep. Instead, you want to get out of bed and try to take your mind off being unable to fall asleep.
Once you get out of bed, you should look to do something boring. Try to find an activity that doesn’t stimulate you. This means you should not turn on your favorite shows on Netflix. Instead, you want to do something that is relaxing for your body and mind. This could be something as simple as listening to relaxing music. It could be reading a book. Regardless of what you choose, you don’t want it to be too engaging.
3. Write A Journal
You may find that something is giving you anxiety. If so, you can try to release it by writing it down. Writing down what you are worried about is a good technique that you can incorporate into your bedtime routine. If you write down whatever is worrying you, it’s less likely to be stuck in your head when you are trying to fall asleep. Once you get them on paper, it makes it much easier to worry about them the next day.
Practicing Better Habits For Improved Sleep:
The habits you have and the routines you follow can make or break your sleep. They not only influence how easy it is to get to sleep, but the quality of sleep you end up getting. These things can include your sleep schedule, your work patterns, your sleep environment, and more. Use the following as a comprehensive checklist to ensure you are optimizing your sleep as well as possible.
– Do Something Relaxing
Try to do something that is relaxing before bed every single night. Try out different activities to see what works the best for you. Everyone is different. While listening to relaxing music may be best for you, it could be stimulating for someone else.
– Turn Off All Technology
You don’t want to use any technology or screens when you are trying to sleep. Try to avoid screens for a good amount of time before going to bed. Any exposure to blue light can make it difficult to sleep because it limits melatonin production. This is your body’s sleep hormone that helps you fall asleep.
– Optimize Your Bedroom
While you may think having a comfortable bed is all you need, that’s not the case. You want to optimize your bedroom environment in different ways to make it easier to sleep. This includes making sure your bedroom is cool. The temperature should be anywhere from 68-70 degrees depending on personal preference. If your bedroom is too cold or too hot, it can decrease the quality of your sleep. You also want to ensure no external noises are waking you up when you sleep or causing you to be unable to fall asleep. If you do have a lot of external noises, you could add a white noise machine to your room or use earplugs. It’s also a good idea to either get a facemask or use blackout curtains to keep the light out of your room. The bedroom should be clutter free, take into account how much storage you need when selecting furniture from Apt2B.
– Avoid Caffeine or Nicotine
Both of these chemicals are stimulants. They can keep you from falling asleep and they can decrease the overall quality of your sleep. If you are going to be drinking caffeine, try to do it before noon. The effects can last up to 6 hours after consuming it.
– Avoid Eating Heavy Meals At Night
Try to avoid eating heavy meals at night. It can keep you from falling asleep and it can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night.
