Sleep defines you. Sleeping is the ultimate weapon that helps you relax and keep the stress away. Why do you need sleep? Well, the most common reasons are- to calm yourself down, to focus on your mental and physical health, and to help yourself cope with time. A good sleep makes a good day, and a good day gives fruitful results. If you are stressed or tired, the only way to demolish them is to sleep. But sometimes, excessive stress does not let you relax or rest your eyes, which eventually develops insomnia. Many techniques such as exercises, a few meditating apps, a food diet, etc., can help you improve your sleep. Just because you have trouble sleeping does not mean you cannot solve the dilemma. To know how to improve your sleep and the techniques you can apply to your sleeping schedules, go through the article.
Why is Sleep Necessary?
Ask yourself, why is sleeping necessary? Because your mind and body need to relax, but most importantly so that your brain can conduct necessary cleaning and memory forming functions to get in a balanced and healthy chemical state for the next day. If you look at a lazy person who is a couch potato, you would know that sleeping is everything to them. An excessive amount of sleep is not healthy, but there is a limit. There is always a limit. Sleep quality has a direct impact on your mental and physical well-being. If you don’t succeed, it will significantly impact your daytime energy, productivity, emotional balance, and weight. However, many of us toss and turn at night, unable to get the rest we require.
Getting a good night’s sleep may seem like an impossible goal when you’re up a lot at 3 AM. But, you can control the quality of your sleep more than you realize. Just as how you feel during working hours often depends on how well you sleep at night, the cure for trouble sleeping often lies in your daily routine. Unhealthy lifestyle and habits will keep you awake at night and eventually affect your daily routine. You’ll lose focus on your work, and start to suffer from depression due to lack of attention.
There are some tips and tricks that might help you improve your sleeping schedule, and by trying these tips, you can enjoy a better night’s sleep, improve your health, and improve the way you think and feel during the day.
What Ruins Your Sleep
Sleep quality can easily be improved unless the stress or insomnia is chronic. Sleeping disorder does not come naturally. It can be due to your bad schedule, stress, or genetics.
Excessive Stress
Stress is the primary factor behind sleep deprivation. Sleep quality gets ruined every time you get stressed from work, school, assignments, or society. Stress can also arise from hatred, loss of death, isolation, identity crisis, etc. It affects your melatonin levels which causes sleep problems.
Caffeine and Alcohol Consumption
If you are a regular absorber of caffeine or alcohol, you should lower the amount. Caffeine is one of the significant factors that halt sleeping time. You would notice that corporate workers often sip on coffee during the night to stop themselves from sleeping because they need to get the work done. And that is not a good thing. You can sip on coffee, but not during the night.
Food Habit
Funny to admit, but food can be the reason behind sleep loss or bad sleep quality. Fatty food, caffeinated food, or spicy food can hamper your top-tier quality sleep. Fatty food or spicy food often creates gastric in your stomach, so if you have a sensitive diet, these types of food can make you bloated. Now, how are you supposed to sleep with a bloated belly button?
Work from Home Routine
Avoid bringing work home to your bedroom because your office duty has made you too stressed to have a good night’s sleep. Working from home is the easiest way to sabotage your sleeping schedule, especially if you don’t set clear boundaries on when you wont check emails and chat messages. Make sure to keep your office somewhere outside your bedroom so your body can mentally consider the space only for sleep.
Genetic Insomnia
It’s one of the factors that can’t be solved. Insomnia can be genetic too. If you have an irregular sleeping quality due to your bad habits, it can be easily solved. But genetic insomnia is a factor that has no ultimate cure.
These are the following factors you need to avoid if you want a proper amount of sleep.
How Do You Improve Sleep?
Now, let’s focus on what can help you improve your sleep. One key improvement is to only use your bed as a sleeping area. Try not to work, watch tv, or stay awake too long in your bed. Consider other rooms or a chair for those activities, and only head to bed when sleepy. You need positivity in your life, so here are the following things that can bestow positivity on your sleeping schedule:
Avoid Exposure to Light
You don’t have to embrace darkness for this. You can survive in a room where it has a low intensity of light. High exposure can affect your eyesight and create disturbance in your mind—another reason not to fall asleep. On the reverse, make sure to get light exposure in the morning to set your biological clock for the day.
Avoid Technological Devices Before Going To Sleep
For this generation, it is tough to avoid technological devices such as mobile phones, iPhones, laptops, MacBooks, etc. Even though it is fun using the devices, the harsh fact is they are not suitable for your eyes and brain.
Before going to bed, if you use your mobile phone, your entire concentration will be on what you are focusing on your mobile screen. This is how you distract yourself from sleep.
Maintain A Healthy Food Diet
As mentioned above, avoid eating fatty food before going to sleep. No one wants their stomach to look or feel like a rock while sleeping.
Spend Time Outside During Daylight
Try to go out of your house during daylight and enjoy nature. If you are stuck in your bed 24/7, it is obvious that you won’t get to sleep when you need to sleep.
Exercise and Meditation
Before going to sleep, try to do light exercise or meditation for 10-15 minutes. It can help your body relax and give you a night of quality sleep. Mindfulness can also help calm an active brain.
Maintain A Comfortable Sleeping Environment
Sounds unusual? It shouldn’t be! If you know about the importance of tidying up your workplace to increase productivity, why not try it with your sleep! It’s essential to see the place you are sleeping in and get familiar with it. The area that surrounds you might be noisy. Is that a good thing? No! So, you need to shift to a room with less noise. Make sure the room is cool to your liking and not too hot, and that it is dark as well.
Avoid Listening To Energetic Music
Having an exciting spirit before going to sleep might be an obstacle. Music often makes a person excited. Hence, it gets difficult for a person to focus on their sleep as their mind concentrates on the music. Podcasts for sleep and specific sleep playlists with calming music and nature sounds are recommended. If you can successfully follow these rules, it can be guaranteed that your sleep will reach the finest quality level.
Conclusion
It is not unusual to have an irregular schedule of sleep. Most people face this dilemma, and hardly any people try to solve it. Lack of sleep can develop permanent physical disorders, so to improve it, you can follow the mentioned rules or seek help from experts or friends and family.
If you are a victim of an irregular sleep schedule and looking to improve the quality of your sleep, it’s high time you do something about it. If none of the steps we mentioned worked for you, it’s time to visit a sleep clinic. You can also consider helping your body recover with additional supplements such as Tok Wellness, which uses researched adaptogens to help the body recover.
