Sleeping is a basic human function that everyone needs to do to survive. While the record for the longest hours of not sleeping is approximately 11 days, the signs of sleep deprivation show up right away, which won’t be good for overall health. According to the National Sleep Foundation guidelines, people need to sleep between seven to nine hours a day. While that may seem to be achievable, not everyone can achieve quality sleep that’ll benefit their bodies. When it comes to sleep, you need to ensure that you’re getting quality ones so that you can keep yourself fully rested for the whole day. When your body has enough sleep, you can function well, allowing you to do your tasks properly. With that, listed below are the ways you can improve sleep:
Table of Contents
1. Invest In a Good Mattress
To get the most comfortable sleep, you need to lay your body on a comfortable mattress and avoid sleeping on the couch or the floor, as you’ll be waking up with body pains that you have to deal with for the rest of the day.
When choosing the perfect mattress, you can go for a hybrid, pillow-top, innerspring, or memory foam. If you want pure comfort, you can acquire it through a memory foam mattress. There are plenty of reviews online that guide you to the perfect bed for you. You can choose to visit this page and see how a memory foam mattress would be perfect for your sleep. Not only would you be sleeping comfortably at night, but you can also help to improve your body posture allowing for improvement in your overall health.
2. Avoid Screen Time
As much as possible, if you could avoid screen time two hours before you go to sleep, it would be great as it could help you improve your sleep. Screen time includes time using your laptops, desktop monitors, televisions, mobile phones, and tablet computers. While you may be too dependent on using those to entertain yourself, you might want to consider reading a book or spend quality time with your family.
In circumstances that you cannot avoid using screen time as it’s part of your work, you may benefit from using anti-glare glasses which blue-lights wouldn’t affect your eyes and your sleep.
3. Avoid Caffeine In The Afternoon
Once the clock strikes noon, you should avoid consuming any caffeine such as coffees and teas. While you may want to keep your body awake during the entire day, you can do other things such as meditating or taking a quick nap in a quiet room.
When your body consumes caffeine, you become energized and awake, improving your body’s performance. The effect can last for hours which can reach until your bedtime. To improve your sleep quality, you should avoid drinking coffee and tea in the afternoon and just drink non-caffeinated beverages instead.
You should note that caffeine isn’t only present in your coffees and teas but also in chocolates, energy drinks, or even pain relievers. You should always try to check the label before taking any food and beverage late in the afternoon.
4. Workout Early In The Morning
The best time to work out is in the morning. In this way, you can immediately start your day right and continuously remind yourself why you need to take good care of your body and what food you should eat within the day. When you choose to work out when it’s getting late or near your bedtime, you might have trouble sleeping at night as the energy still fuels you.
Some people think that when you work out late at night, you allow your body to grow tired, helping you sleep faster. But, you need to reconsider your thoughts as the post-workout energy will help to keep you awake. The latest time that you could work out would be three to four hours before you hit the hay.
5. Create A Sleep Schedule
To allow your body to utilize sleep and have a full seven to nine hours of sleep per day, you should commit yourself to a sleep schedule and try to follow your appropriate sleeping and waking hours daily.
Try to get eight hours of sleep per day, no matter what day of the week. You should also sleep and wake up on a set of scheduled hours to train your body to instantly feel sleepy during your bedtime hours and wake up automatically on your waking hours. You’d be surprised how you can wake up just in time for your alarm to sound off.
6. Create A Peaceful Environment
Wouldn’t it be great if you get to enjoy your sleep distraction-free? Sleep is great, especially when you wake up and feel fully-rested, having slept tight like a baby. To achieve a great night of sleep, you can try improving your bedroom’s environment and allow it to be something better and more peaceful.
Add blackout curtains for your bedroom so that you can guarantee that no peep of light would be coming through your room for that total darkness experience. You can also switch to more comfortable and softer fabric for your duvet, bed, and pillowcases. You can choose to add a weighted blanket to allow you to feel rested and reduce your anxieties.
If you’re a light sleeper, you can benefit from using noise-canceling headphones so that you wouldn’t hear anything from the outside and just focus on your breathing for a peaceful night of sleep.
7. Relax In The Evening
To improve your sleep, as bedtime gets nearer, you should try to clear your mind and remove your worries and stress. You can try to do some meditation, diffuse some lavender essential oil, drink a cup of caffeine-free tea. or take a warm and steamy bath or shower.
When you feel stressed during your bedtime, you’d have trouble falling asleep at night as your brain keeps on minding an issue. It’ll be best if you could try to distract yourself and focus on a relaxing activity for a peaceful sleep at night.
Conclusion
Falling asleep at night can be a challenge for some people, especially for those experiencing insomnia. While that can be difficult to handle, you should still try to look for ways to improve and get quality sleep, as your body would benefit a lot from it.
Sleep is essential for your body, and you shouldn’t skip it. To improve sleep, you should try to keep your sleep habits healthy all the time for a better and energized mood when you wake up.
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