A good night’s sleep governs a range of your physical and mental faculties. Irregular or sporadic sleep may often leave you feeling even more tired upon waking up. Rather than being doomed to tossing and turning through the night, take charge of your daily sleeping schedule and power up your routine.
There are a number of ways to impact your sleep cycle. From eating right, regular exercise, to tracking your sleep with smart wearables, and reducing the amount of light pouring in; read on for the 5 most effective tips to improve your daily sleeping regime.
Maintain a schedule
Whether you require 7 or 8 hours of sleep in a day, falling into a daily routine is the key to establishing a healthy circadian rhythm. Ensure you sleep and rise at the same time for a few weeks, until your natural body clock coincides with your sleep schedule.
Such consistency mustn’t be lost on weekends, since it could disrupt your sleep wake cycle. Make use of reliable Bluetooth smartwatch to maintain and monitor your daily sleep.
While ensuring that your bedroom at night is dark and cozy is imperative, it is essential to expose yourself to bright light through the day time, and minimize exposure to blue light in the evening.
Natural light during the daytime is a great source of energy. Not only does it aid in fostering a lively day time routine, it can even improve sleep quality during the night.
However, exposure to blue light after dark is not conducive to your regime. Abstaining from blue light which is emitted from your television, laptop or smartphones an hour prior to bed time is the way to go.
Stay away from wakeful stimulants
No matter you’re indulgence, it will bode you well to stay away from stimulants that can compromise sleep and induce wakefulness.
Whether you lean towards coffee, tobacco, cola, chocolates or alcohol, incorporating such vices close to your bedtime is a recipe for bad sleep. Ensure that there is a 3 to 4 hour gap between your sleep time and consumption of such stimulants. These can negatively impact your daily quality of sleep.
Incorporate a relaxing pre-sleep routine
An hour or so before nap time, include a series of relaxing activities that can help induce sleep. Incorporate light stretching, reading a book, a hot water shower or breathing exercises before you retire every night.
Such activities help the body to unwind and keep the secretion of cortisol on the low. Associated with being up and alert - cortisol is released upon both physical and psychological stimulation.
Avoid bright lights in your room and restrict working late at night, since your body will keep you active and alert by constantly secreting cortisol.
Reduce sleeping during the day
There is a difference between power naps and long daytime slumber. While a quick 15-20 minute power nap can revitalize your energy levels, sleeping for as long as an hour or more will negatively impact your sleep at night.
Sporadic naps during the day can confuse your internal body clock, leading to a lack of sleep as the day draws to a close. Several studies even point out that sleeping through the day time doesn’t really satiate the desire to sleep, but instead refuels it. Short daytime naps under 20mins can bolster day time brain capacity, while longer naps can harm daily quality of sleep.
Your sleeping schedule pays a key role in establishing good health. Insufficient sleep can lead to a buffet of mental and physical problems to tackle.
