5 Small Hacks To Improve Your Sleep Quality
Everyone deserves a proper night’s sleep. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student or hard-working professional; your body needs rest and relaxation. If you suffer from frequent restless nights, consider these five small hacks to improve your sleep quality. You’ll see that these tips will get you the night’s sleep you deserve.
Set Alarms
This may seem obvious, but daily alarms are one of the best ways to improve your sleep quality each night. Keep track of your daily wake-up calls with a bedside alarm. Whether you use your phone or an alarm clock, alarms keep you on schedule to promote a healthy sleep pattern. Staying on track of your nightly sleep can often befuddle you as you navigate anxious thoughts or busy schedules. Still, keep two alarms for bedtime and wakeup time to hold yourself accountable. If you’re the type of person to avoid your alarm, set multiple. Mostly everyone uses an alarm to wake up, but it’s also a great idea to set one for when you go to bed. This way, you sleep earlier and promote a consistent sleeping pattern each night. Not only will you feel less groggy in the morning, but you’ll have more productive energy to utilize throughout the day.
Keep a Cool, Dark Room
As children, it’s common to use a nightlight or similar device to keep away scary thoughts. Some adults still need artificial light to fall asleep. While this may work for you temporarily, you’re actually sabotaging your nightly rest when you do so. Therefore, avoid any artificial lights or nightlights when you sleep. Instead, keep the room dark. When you do, your mind subconsciously recognizes that it’s nighttime and time to sleep. Even the most inconspicuous glow from technology can impede on this natural function. Blackout curtains are likely your best option to promote a dark atmosphere. However, if you live in the city or near illuminated spaces, consider using an eye-mask. It may take some natural adjustment, but an eye-mask protects your cataracts and retinas from any external light, thereby allowing for more consistent sound sleep throughout the night. Additionally, it helps to keep your room cool.
That doesn’t mean sleeping in a freezing room, though. Rooms that are too hot or too cold will disrupt healthy sleep patterns. Ideally, keep your room within 67 and 69 degrees Fahrenheit so you wake up feeling refreshed. If you’re still too cold, use another blanket.
Avoid Caffeine Too Close To Bedtime
It goes without say that you should refrain from caffeine too close to bedtime. Caffeine is a natural stimulant used to promote alertness, cognitive function, and energy. While a morning cup of coffee or midday energy drink will help boost you for the rest of the day, drinking or eating caffeinated foods or beverages too late in the day will greatly impact your sleep quality that night. Depending on the caffeine source, it can take your body twenty minutes to an hour to fully absorb the caffeine and feel its full effects. Keep in mind that too much caffeine can promote anxiety, restlessness, irregular heartbeat, headaches, migraines, and high blood pressure. If you need caffeine throughout the day, dosages between 200 to 400mg are considered safe, but this can change depending on your tolerance. Regardless, consuming caffeine too close to bedtime will trigger the brain to higher energetic performance, leading to restlessness throughout the night and drowsiness the next morning.
Avoid Heavy Meals Too Late in the Day
People commonly report feeling lethargic and sleepy after a large meal which may sound like an easy solution for a healthy, restful sleep. However, one of the best small hacks to improve your sleep quality is actually to eat lighter meals later in the day. Like breathing, digestion is a natural systematic phenomenon your body goes through after you eat. You don’t consider the internal mechanics of your digestion system until later when it’s time to use the bathroom. Yet, the digestion system is responsible for the breakdown and conversion of food into energy.
Eating too late in the day, especially high-protein foods, requires your digestion system to work harder since you’re not utilizing as much energy as when you’re active. Not to mention, eating late at night increases risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and acid reflux. If you really need a late-night snack, lighter fare is the best option. Yogurt, berries, granola, nuts, hummus, or other healthy snack foods make excellent choices. This way your body digests these foods while still promoting sleepiness without any gastrointestinal or digestive issues.
Follow a Consistent Sleep Schedule
Finally, with all that said, one of the simplest ways to ensure quality sleep each night is to follow a consistent sleep schedule. While it’s nice to sleep in on the weekend, especially following a busy work week, you’re not doing your body any favors in the process. Aside from catching up on lost sleep, sleeping in actually resets your sleep cycle, throwing it into a pattern of confusion for the upcoming workweek. The same theory applies to when you go to bed. If you consistently go to bed around 10pm but stay up until 1am on the weekend, your body doesn’t know which time is the appropriate bedtime.
Instead of putting your body through this state of flux, stick to an optimal sleep time and wake up time that works for you seven days a week. While you don’t need to keep your weekday schedule the same as the weekends, perhaps stay up or sleep in for only one extra hour instead of three. It will take some adjustment, but your brain and body will thank you.
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