We all have nights when we struggle to get a good night’s sleep but one thing I’ve learned is that consistency is key. Having a consistent sleeping pattern isn’t something that you will develop overnight (literally...) but is definitely worth doing. So here are some tips that I have learned that will really improve the way that you sleep:
1. Avoid working inside your bedroom
Before you read anymore I wanted to make sure that this was the first thing that you read as it is one of the most important and efficient ways for you to improve your night’s sleep. It is so effective as if you work in the same place that you sleep your mind will have a hard time differentiating which one to get ready for. This causes you to stay up when you’re tired because you’re in the mindset for work and you’ll be tired when it comes to do your work. This little change in scenery will have a huge impact on how well you sleep at night.
2. Have a schedule
As simple as it might sound, going to sleep and waking up at the same time ever day will set your body’s internal clock so you will feel tired around the same time every night and you will wake up at around the same time every morning. One reason why I see a lot of people struggling with is because they sleep in on weekends. This will reset your body’s internal clock and you will struggle on the following week to set it back to where it should be.
3. Eat well before you go to sleep
Eating just before you go to sleep will make you feel full and you won’t be able to sleep. Your body will be trying to digest the food and to do this properly you should be sitting upright makes it uncomfortable to sleep after you’ve recently ate. So for example if you’re going to sleep at 10pm don’t eat anything after 8pm if you can avoid it.
4. Ensure your room is sufficiently dark
One basic thing that I found that made it easier for me to sleep was simply getting blackout curtains. We all have circadian rhythms which tell our body how to function. Darkness tells your brain that you need to go to sleep and light tells you it’s time to get up, so if you have your room sufficiently dark you will find it easier for your brain to relax and go to sleep. Additionally if you spend more time outside during the day and keep blinds open when inside, you will find that you will sync up easier to the day. This means your body will be more aware of what it should be doing which also improves focus during the day.
5. Avoid phones and TV for around an hour before sleeping
As much as you might love going through social media or watching the latest series on Netflix late at night this is ruining our sleep. Through this we are staring a bright light and this tell our brain that it is still bright and we should stay awake. Particularly blue light can have the most severe impact on hormones stopping you from getting tired when your body needs to sleep. However, if you’re like me and you tend to need to use screens before you go to sleep for work etc... it can be hard to find the right balance. Personally, what I do is use ‘f.lux’ which reduces the amount of blue light that my laptop emits or night shift on my iPhone.
6. Exercise
Doing exercise during the day (especially in the morning) makes it a lot easier for your body to fall asleep at night. This is because you body actually needs the sleep more than usual to as you need to rest and recover. So you will get to sleep quicker and feel more satisfied when you wake up.
7. Limit coffee and sugar
The last thing you need before you go to sleep is a large caffeine intake or a massive sugar rush. If you’re going to have either of these them make sure it’s quite early during the day. Not only will you struggle to sleep but you’ll feel even groggier in the morning. A rule that I try to stick to is that I never have any caffeine or sugar after 6pm, of course sometimes there are exceptions but I would suggest generally sticking to something similar.
8. Do something to release stress
Finally on the list is stopping a bad day from messing up your sleep. A lot of the time we can let a bad experience keep us up at night where we stay up for hours thinking about it but don’t let it ruin your sleep. Most of the time at 11pm at night there’s not much you can do about the situation so the best thing to do it tell yourself no matter what it is “I’ll deal with it in the morning but now it’s time to sleep”. I like to have specific routine that I carry out every night but I expect this would be different for each person. What the routine allows me to do is let my mind know to relax by performing the same set of tasks in the same order every night. Some ideas of what you could incorporate are yoga, meditation and deep breathing. It’s important not to do any challenging late at night because obviously it will wake you up. My personal routine is set my bag for the next day, reading, brush my teeth, meditation and then to show gratitude. After these 5 simple activities I almost always feel ready to sleep.
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