If sleeping at night is difficult, several factors could be responsible for your insomnia. From your bedroom setting, your phone habits, exercise, and food choices; many of the mundane things you do every day can skewer your sleep pattern, leading to stress and other health challenges. The good news is you can change your situation to enjoy quality sleep every night. Here are a few tips to get a better night's sleep.
Time Your Sleep and Wake Hours
To maintain your body's optimal health and well-being, experts recommend seven to nine hours of sleep per day. Additionally, make sure to stick to a sleep schedule. Hit the snooze and wake up the same time each day, even on weekends. If you will oversleep on weekends, be sure to reduce the extra time in bed to one hour.
Doing this will train your body to adapt to your sleep pattern, and it becomes natural after some time. Sometimes, sleep may not come immediately. Try to do a relaxing activity such as listening to soothing music, taking a bath or reading a dull book. Hit the bed when you start feeling tired.
Reduce Naps
If you don’t work at night but take long naps during the day, you may have difficulty sleeping. Try to reduce your naps to 30 minutes and don’t take them close to your sleeping time. People who do night shifts have to nap long hours to balance their sleep deficit. You shouldn’t be napping for that long during the day if you can sleep for seven hours each night.
Make Your Bedroom Sleep-friendly
Your room should make falling asleep easy. An ideal room conducive for sleeping will be cool, dark and quiet. Light of any kind can make it hard to fall asleep. Additionally, don’t take light-emitting devices such as your phone or tablet or eBook reader to your bed. The blue light makes it challenging to sleep, and the temptation to surf the internet can be too strong to overcome. Make your room as comfy as possible and remove any source of distraction.
Diet Is Important
Trying to sleep on an empty stomach is a huge task. You will encounter the same problem if you go to bed after a heavy meal. Both situations make you uncomfortable and delay falling asleep. Avoid foods and drinks that contain alcohol, caffeine or nicotine few hours to bed. These stimulants can mess with your brain and prevent you from having a good night's sleep.
Exercise
Exercise is excellent, but it can wreak havoc on your sleep if done at the wrong time. Workouts increase your body temperature, boost metabolism and elevate levels of hormones such as testosterone and cortisol.
If you are exercising in the morning, the change in your metabolism and hormonal levels can help you stay active during the day. However, they can make you hyperactive if done too close to snooze time. If you must exercise close to sleep time, make it low-intensity workouts.
Having a better night’s sleep is essential for your health, fitness, and productivity. Make your bedroom conducive for sleep, train your body to shut down at a specific time and modify your diet and workouts for maximum sleep time.
