Have you ever counted sheep while trying to fall asleep? Then I guess you have trouble falling asleep at night regularly? if yes, first you need to understand how to go to sleep.
Peaceful sleep is just as important as the food you eat to survive. Research has already shown that poor sleep patterns can lead to poor brain function and other adverse effects on your health.
In this blog, let’s discuss how to improve sleep quality and How to get better sleep. Kindly read on to find out.
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Why should I improve my sleep habits? Will it improve my health?
Getting good sleep not only provides physical benefits but also provides mental benefits as well. Some of the benefits of getting good sleep every night are:
1. Sharp analytical ability
When you are not getting sufficient sleep, your brain becomes worked up with information from the previous day. Hence, it is not able to process the new data from the following day effectively.
If you don’t get enough sleep, you will find that you cannot correlate information correctly and find taking important business and personal decisions difficult.
By getting a good night’s sleep, you will find that you are much more focused and relaxed at work and can link information or events well and make the right business or personal decisions if you follow the right sleep tips.
2. Good mood
Research has shown that people who are impoverished in sleep are often in a bad mood. This is because their brains are overloaded with information from many days and thereby stressed out. They take out their stress on other people in one way or another.
If you get good sleep, your brain gets the time it needs to recover from work tension or emotional stress. The muscles in your brain become relaxed and oxygenated if you get good sleep.
3. Good cardiac health
Whenever your mind is tensed or worked up, your heart has to pump extra hard to supply enough blood to your brain. This raises your BP as well as affects your health. Good sleep relaxes the muscles in your brain and heart.
Your BP lowers slightly, and your heart relaxes when you sleep well. Good sleep can increase a person’s lifespan.
4. Normal blood sugar levels
When you’re awake, your cells need to be supplied with high amounts of glucose to do your day-to-day activities. This does put stress on your heart and other organs in the body.
When you get enough sleep, however, those organs get enough time to recover. Lack of proper sleep, in the long run, will deteriorate the health of your organs.
5. Boosts your immunity
When a pathogen enters your body, the WBCs in it will travel to the location of those pathogens and destroy them. Just like humans, your WBCs need rest after a long travel in your body. When you sleep, they get that rest and are recharged the next day.
Lack of sleep or Insomnia will slow down their speed and affect their response time to a pathogen attack. So sleep well to recharge your WBCs and keep your immunity in top condition.
6. Maintaining a healthy weight
Sleep does not directly affect your weight, but indirectly, it does. Sleep deprivation or Insomnia alters the levels of two hormones in your brain. They are leptin and ghrelin hormones.
When their level reduces in your brain, you will be more tempted to eat junk food whenever you’re hungry. You’ll also develop a resistance to exercising in general.
Those two are the ingredients to put on a lot of weight. So sleep well to maintain healthy eating habits and thereby keep your body in shape.
The leptin hormone is produced by adipose cells and enterocytes in our small intestine. It stimulates hunger inside all of us. A deficiency of this hormone leads to satiety or lack of appetite.
Our stomachs and intestines produce ghrelin hormone. This hormone also stimulates hunger. Its other function is to enhance our body’s capacity to store fat. An increase in the levels of this hormone leads to obesity.
How to Sleep Better at Night? Some Tips you Must Know
When you’ve had a bad day or had a lot of work to do, it’s pretty natural to get stressed out and start overthinking. Overthinking makes you mentally and physically tired.
It also deprives you of much-needed sleep. These are the ways to improve sleep. By following them, you can get an idea of How to get better sleep at night. They are:
1. Meditate regularly
Doing meditation calms your mind and slightly lowers your BP and pulse rate. It relaxes the muscles in every part of your body and helps you focus on things better.
If done correctly, it will relieve you of anxiety and stress.
If you’re relaxed most of the time, you will sleep well often.
2. Get a mattress of the right firmness.
As far as mattresses are concerned, there is no uniform degree of softness or hardness that suits everyone. Different people will be comfortable with varying degrees of softness or hardness.
This depends on their age, body composition, weight, and level of activity. Try out different mattresses and see which degree of hardness or softness suits you the best.
The more comfortable you are with your mattress, the quicker you will fall asleep. I use a very soft bed, and I fall asleep within minutes every night when I lay on it if you are wondering how to sleep better at night.
3. Try sleeping on your terrace once in a while
Research has found that cool breezes and deep darkness (usually found on one’s terrace) prompt one’s brain to release the sleep hormone melatonin quickly. They are also suitable for one’s health.
Bright lights and harmful radiation from electronic gadgets are counter-productive to getting sleep. So sleep on your terrace once in a while to fall asleep quickly.
4. Switch on your AC
Research has also found out that cooler temperatures prompt our brains to release the melatonin hormone quicker. So you’ll fall asleep quicker. Covering yourself with a blanket with the AC on is the perfect recipe to fall asleep quickly.
Your body is highly comfortable and relaxed in that state. Hence, you’ll fall asleep soon. It will feel like heaven. You wouldn’t even want to get up for a long time.
You might have noticed that people are more drowsy during the winter months than during the summer months while if you are wondering how to go to sleep.
5. Sleep on hi-tech beds
Trust me, hi-tech beds with an adjustable degree of softness have been developed. Whoever sleeps on them can adjust their hardness or softness according to their needs.
The angle of the mattress near the head and feet can also be changed in hi-tech beds to suit one’s requirements.
It’s like your personal massage therapist. So get one now (if you can) to sleep well for the rest of your life.
6. Listen to guided audio visualizations
Guided audio visualizations will make you intensely visualize a serene scenery that will relax your mind and body and make you fall asleep quicker.
You’ll also feel happier when you wake up. It’s also relatively cost-effective to implement. So try listening to guided audio visualizations or pleasant music if you’re not able to sleep.
7. Try eating a carb-heavy or starch-heavy dinner
When digestion occurs in your stomach, most of the oxygen in your body is sent to your stomach to aid in digestion. That time, your brain gets less oxygen, and you feel drowsy.
Take advantage of this drowsiness and lay on your bed when you feel drowsy. Your eyelids will become heavy, and you’ll fall asleep within minutes.
8. Increase the exposure of bright light in the day
Natural sunlight or a bright light your installed can help in the circadian rhythm—people who are suffering from insomnia sleep better with better sunny light exposure.
Not only does it keep you active in the morning, but you also have a quality sleep at night. Moreover, it took 83% less to fall asleep.
9. Avoid Drinking Alcohol in the Evening
Although there are plenty of holiday events and epic parties every month, it is important to maintain your sleep patterns.
Sometimes it may seem easier to fall asleep after drinking alcohol; it tends to disrupt your sleeping patterns. Also, alcohol is known to block the REM phase, which helps in feeling rested in the morning.
10. Take a Warm Shower
Taking a warm bath before sleeping can keep your body temperature in check. Since sleep pattern is triggered by lower temperature, a warm shower can facilitate it.
Can I improve my memory by following a healthy sleep habit? What are the benefits of having a good sleep?
Getting good sleep every night has many benefits. They are:
- It boosts your immunity as your WBCs get adequate rest.
- It helps you maintain a healthy BMI.
- It prevents diabetes of any kind and heart problems.
- It reduces your stress and betters your mood.
- It improves your cognitive and problem-solving skills.
- It helps you manage people better by relaxing your mind and enabling you to think clearly.
- It enables you to drive safely every time your mind is more relaxed and concentrate better.
- It improves your memory as your brain’s muscles are more flexible and can retrieve and process information more efficiently.
Also read: HOW TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY AT WORK
How to improve sleep quality at night? 6 Scientifically Proven SleepTips and Strategies.
You can sleep better at night by following these simple steps. They are:
1. Switch off the lights
Having the lights switched on can fool your brain into thinking that it’s still daytime. It reduces the secretion of the melatonin pigment by your brain.
Therefore, you’ll not feel drowsy, and you’ll not fall asleep quickly if your bedroom lights are on. Kindly switch them off to fall asleep quicker.
2. Do not consume coffee or calorie-rich foods just before bedtime
Coffee or carbs-rich foods like white rice will give you a lot of energy quickly. Hence, consuming them will be counter-productive if you’re trying to get a good night’s sleep.
The caffeine in coffee will give you enough energy to stay awake for 6 to 8 hours. So it’s a strict “NO” before bedtime.
If you are addicted to the savor of coffee, at least have decaf coffee at all times. It will give you a decent amount of energy and won’t hurt your health.
3. Avoid siestas
After you sleep well, your body is recharged. Therefore, if you have slept during the afternoon, you won’t feel drowsy enough at night.
If you must rest during the afternoon, take short naps, not exceeding an hour. Short ‘Power Naps’ have been known to improve one’s health and recharge one’s body.
4. Take Melatonin supplements
Melatonin, a hormone produced by our brains during bedtime, helps in inducing sleep. Deficiency of melatonin can cause Insomnia.
Taking Melatonin supplements can cure insomnia. Research has shown that Melatonin supplements are very effective at curing Insomnia.
5. Get a comfortable mattress or bed
The comfier you are on your mattress, the quicker you fall asleep. This does not mean that your bed has to be extra soft.
Everybody feels comfortable with varying degrees of softness or hardness. Buy a mattress that suits your requirements so that you fall asleep quickly after laying on your bed.
6. Don’t drink too much water or any other liquid before going to bed
Although hydration is good for your health in many ways, drinking too much water or any other liquid shortly before bedtime will cause frequent urination and interrupt your sleep. Do not drink more than 250 ml of fluid before bedtime.
Will doing exercise, yoga, and meditation improve sleep quality? If Yes, then how?
Yes, doing yoga or meditation or both will help you sleep better. It will be more effective if done regularly. Meditation completely relaxes your body and mind and thereby relieves your stress.
A least stressed and most relaxed mind will secrete the most Melatonin hormone when one lays down on his or her bed. Therefore, one will sleep more quickly and deeply.
Yoga also relaxes the body and mind in similar ways to meditation and is ideal to do before bedtime. It will also enhance the secretion of the Melatonin hormone responsible for inducing sleep.
Also Read: How To Can Get A Chiseled Jawline? Learn How To Lose Cheek Fat Naturally
Our recommended electronic devices and apps will help you to fall asleep quickly. As per Internet Research and Interviews.
Science and tech have advanced so much that there are hi-tech gadgets available to make you fall asleep quickly. Some of those fantastic gadgets are:
This device costs the US $249. It measures the amount of activity (including thoughts) in your brain using special sensors and feeds that data to its respective mobile app.
Depending on the data, the mobile app will guide you through a meditation exercise that will entirely relax your mind and body and make you fall asleep quicker.
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S+ SLEEP MONITOR
This device cost US $130 and was developed by the tech giant Apple. Instead of using sensors that need physical contact with your body, this device employs wireless sensors.
The wireless sensors detect and count the tosses and turns you make while sleeping and feed the data to your Apple iPhone wirelessly. The respective iPhone app then suggests meditation and yoga exercises accordingly.
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SLEEP NUMBER IT BED
This miracle of an invention costs US $1,099. In this bed/cot, you can adjust the mattress’s softness to suit one’s needs via its respective smartphone app!
This will make one most comfortable with this bed and make him or her fall asleep quickly on it. You can buy all the gadgets mentioned above on Amazon’s website.
What Do People Think About Sleep tips? According to People’s Opinion
Take a look at these screenshots to know what people think about how to sleep better at night
Conclusion
Sleep is essential to a person’s health. It is often easily overlooked. People think that by sleeping less, they become more productive, but in fact, it’s just the opposite of that.
Sleep deprivation makes people moody, less healthy, less focused, and less productive. One should get enough sleep to keep oneself relaxed, focused, healthy and productive.
There are myriad hi-tech and low-tech ways to get enough sleep. So sleep well and stay healthy.
FAQs
1. What is the ideal bedtime?
9 PM to 10 PM is the ideal bedtime to get 8 to 9 hours of sleep.
2. How long does Insomnia last?
Acute Insomnia lasts for a few weeks.
3. Is Insomnia a by-product of a mental disorder?
Not all the time. Insomnia is mainly caused due to stress, anxiety, and bad food habits, but sometimes it can be caused due to depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
4. Is it okay to take a shower before bedtime?
One must only take a cold shower and not a hot shower before bedtime. Cooler body temperatures enhance drowsiness, while warmer body temperatures are counter-productive.
