How to get better sleep should be at the forefront of anyone's mind, it's incredibly important and by far one of the the most significant things to improve your life. We lay unconscious for a remarkable 1/3rd of our lifetimes, not only that, but how well we sleep in that time defines how we feel for the remainder of our waking hours. To improve sleep in a natural way, I invite you to check out a few 'less' obvious sleep tips below that you can implement almost immediately.
Before we jump into this one, I want you to know that I have an accompanying blog post to this coming up next month, so stick around for that - subscribe to the email list if you haven't.
That post will touch on the techniques that allow you to wake up refreshed and stay alert all day long!
However, today we're talking about the precursor to that, getting to sleep in the first place and a good quality sleep at that. If you have trouble getting to sleep or can't stay asleep, there are a number of lesser known solutions to talk about. I'm sure you've heard of your circadian rhythm before (your body's sleep clock).
When it comes to your circadian rhythm, there are 4 masters of influence we must respect. These are the things that dictate how we set the time boundaries that dictate our sleep habits, i.e. at which time you sleep and which time you wake.
In order of significance, these are:
Light - How and when we are exposed to artificial or natural light.
Exercise/Movement - How and when we engage in physical movement, increases of heart rate.
Feeding - How and when we eat and drink, increases in heart rate, digestive system functionality.
Social Cue's - How and when we engage socially with people, experiences or other mental stimuli, mental attentiveness, responsibilities, expectations.
Exposure or involvement in all of these things will contribute to defining when your body should go to sleep and when it should wake up. Knowing this, we can use this knowledge to our advantage and tailor our patterns to a rhythm that suits our individual lives.
I will also share the specific patterns and routines linked to the above that you can adapt to allow your body to yield to sleep easier and more naturally. Individually they are simple, but together they will require more practise and dedication.
While reading, be sure to perform an inventory on yourself and recognise which of these routines you are familiar with and which you might already do. If you can match those you are familiar with with other sleep tips you haven't heard of, you may be able to create a reliable and effective recipe to get better sleep!
How to get Better Sleep
There are two impotent aspects to this, the length of time asleep and the quality of rest while you sleep.
If you are a strident who struggles to study because of your sleep pattern, or someone working from home who feels groggy in the middle of the day, the following tips may be able to guide you into a new and improved waking pattern.
Ultimately the whole journey to better sleep relies entirely on the trial and error technique, this is the idea that you have to fully try something out (for an appropriate amount of time) before declaring it useful or not.
So using the tips below and more may take some time and money to allow their efficacy to be realised, this is very normal and should be expected.
I invite you to give your best effort in improving your sleep habits, I can't reiterate enough the improvement in your quality of life, should you find something that works for you.
Now, to the tips!
Use Warm and 'Low' Lighting to Encourage Sleep
The gradual approach to sleep is very important. The signals to sleep don't start when you get in to bed, they actually start hours before that.
Using light as the prevailing signal that you want to sleep is a powerful tool, when you are 2-4 hours away from getting in to bed, try your best to lower the amount of natural or artificial light exposure you receive, specifically directly into your eyes.
This refers to room lighting, screen lighting (computer, phone, light from outside etc) and anything else
Additionally, any light you do have turned on, you want to try and make sure it's lower in the room. Try to mimic a sort of sun-set lighting scheme, where the light isn't high in the room but sort of mid level and showing a warm hue.
I know how hard it is to get away from technology, so for this you want to be using a 'night light' mode which are pretty common among platforms these days, apply these changes and use them every evening!
Changing the lighting intensity and position gives a strong signal to the body that the sun is setting and it's time to rest and repair (even when the sun isn't actually setting)
Practical applications of this include having your computer screen at head height or lower (because lets be honest you'll still be using it in the evening....me too...)
A great way of achieving this is by using adjusted lighting, you can pick up some smart bulbs for a pretty cheap price these days, I use them in the lamps at the corner of my room.
Using Amazon Prime you can get these smart bulbs super quick, pick some up if you fancy!
Avoid Exercise too Close to Bedtime
More than likely, exercising before sleep can damage your ability to enter deep sleep and stay there. When you sleep, your heart rate reaches very low levels.
With the intention to gradually yield into the patterns that allow for sleep, increasing your heart rate shortly before sleep means you have a large delta between your active heart rate and your sleeping heart rate.
Even when you finish working out, your body elevates your heart rate for an extended period of time after the fact. This is in contrast to how it should be if you want to get to sleep.
Many may claim that they are able to get to sleep after working out late, though this may be true, the depth of sleep could be in jeopardy.
Aim to get your intense workout done in the early or middle parts of the day, late evening would be fine.
Try to leave roughly 3 hours if you can between working out and sleeping at the latest. But remember, you should always be active in the day!
Avoid Eating 2 hours before Bed
Try to avoid food for roughly 2 hours before bed, this may differ per person, but 2 hours would be a good starting point. If it doesn't work, try to go longer!
You may think that eating this close to bed is the very thing that makes you tired, and this may be true, but it heavily impacts your ability to sleep well.
When you eat close to sleep, the food needs to be digested properly. This is normal, however you are now laying down and the stomach acids and food begin to sit along the length of your digestive tract rather than solely in your stomach.
The issue with this isn't always obvious, because it's common that you either don't wake from this, or you do wake but don't remember waking because it was for a short amount of time.
The stomach acids being present along the digestive tract cause heart burn to the body, but it's so subtle that you consciousness don't realise it, meaning you won't wake up when it's happening.
Unfortunately, this will cause your body to be knocked out of the deep sleep stage or REM stages of sleep. You will wake up feeling groggy and unpleasant because you got less deep/REM sleep than your body had planned.
Avoid Alcohol Entirely and Too Much Water Before Bed
Here, I'm referring to any kind of drink, including alcohol.
As for drinks like water or non alcoholic drinks, drinking too much of these before bed can cause you to wake in the night. Though your body does try to wake you at a good time for this, it's not always good at it.
Often times, you end up interrupting your sleep pattern to go to the toilet. Even if you can get to sleep quickly afterward, you've now shifted your ideal wake time forward significantly.
As for alcohol, this is possibly the worst thing you can do before sleep. There is a common saying that if you have a small amount of alcohol before bed it can help you get you to sleep, this may be true for some people.
This is because alcohol can be a sedative, but that does not mean the same as being a sleep aid. Having alcohol in your system while you are asleep will cause you to wake more frequently in the night, the funny thing is, you won't even remember waking.
The next morning you will claim the alcohol got you to sleep but what you won't know is that it prevented you from entering deep sleep or REM sleep as much as you should have. Alcohol damages your ability to get quality sleep, full stop.
Stop all Caffeine consumption at 2pm
Caffeine is the one thing we all know about. The first thing we need to note is that we all have different tolerances for caffeine, so these tips will differ per person.
Caffeine is used to 'wake you up' or to 'keep you awake' so you can empathise why people run from it when they have every desire to get to sleep.
There's a general rule (again, may differ per person) but if you stop the consumption of caffeine after 2pm, you should give enough time for the less obvious effects to wear off. This is true if you bedtime is somewhere around 10pm.
Again like alcohol, some may claim that they can have caffeine before bed and they sleep fine, but the caffeine actually prevents you from entering the deep sleep and REM sleep routines, so although they get to sleep, it was at the expensive of the quality of that sleep.
One thing to look out for, is that caffeine exists in many things, these can range from fizzy drinks to chocolate, so aware of anything you consume leading up to bed time - it may contain caffeine!
Personally I like to start the day with a strong coffee, or maybe two. Then drink tea for the remainder of the day up to 2pm. If I really want the taste after that, I can just use decaf. I also invested in a fancy mocha pot coffee maker - honestly it produces some FANTASTIC tasting coffee, here's a link to it if you fancy upgrading your coffee tasting experiences.
Why you get Thirsty Before Bed
Some experience an increased thirst specifically before bed, this happens because the body is preparing to go to sleep and realises that it should have the right amount of nutrients/liquids before doing so.
If it doesn't, I'll signal your body to find water. To fix this, make sure you are hydrated throughout the day, then stop drinking large amounts of water before bed, only take sips!
It's important stick to water for this, any other kind of drink may lead to bloating or some other unfavourable effect you don't want before bed.
Limit Social Interactions and Entertainment Before Bed
Socialising in this context doesn't just relate to talking to people, this also relates to engaging in entertainment activities such as watching tv, gaming or anything that stimulates your mind.
This is specifically true for those activities that do well to immerse you, if you are gaming with high-end graphics, bass shaking headphones, verbal communication and mechanical typing...this is a very stimulating and immersive activity. Not to even mention the kind of action -packed game you are playing!
When you expose the mind to something like above, your mind tunnel visions into the experience and it's stimulated to concentrate on what's in front of you.
Using gaming as an example, you are stimulating your visual and audio senses while simultaneously being immersed into a story, resonating with music, dialogue and action-packed cut scenes.
This sensory overload is in stark contrast to what you want before going to bed. You may however, be able to use something like a puzzle game, these are less immersive and thus more suitable, if any.
Many read before bed, although immersive, reading only includes your vision and imagination. Using kindles or books are fine for this as they offer low light exposure (and remember light exposure is the most important one to get right). Reading is fine to do before bed if it works for you!
Improve your Sleeping environment
Generally speaking, you should invest heavily in the things that get a lot of use. Seeing that you spend 1/3d of your life asleep, the bedroom is a good place to sink some money and attention in to.
Look at your bedroom as a whole and ask yourself the following things:
Is my bed comfy?
Does my back hurt when I wake up?
Is my room dark enough, do the curtains block all of the light?
Is my bedroom cold enough for me to fall asleep?
Are my bed sheets comfortable?
Is the lighting in my room too bright?
Can I hear anything irritating when I'm in bed?
Does this room make me feel good?
Do I like the decoration of this room?
Can I improve anything about my sleeping environment?
It's hard for me to recommend what you should change, so I'll just tell you what I did, I'll provide relevant amazon links too.
Comfort- I bought a 2 duvet package, containing 1 summer duvet (lighter) and one heavier winter duvet set (heavier)
Comfort - I invested in something called microfiber bedding, this is one of the comfiest things I've ever touched, amazing stuff, you use it as bed covers/pillow covers etc.
Lighting - I bought longer curtain drapes so it could block the outline of light coming into my room, now in the evening time, no light gets through!
Comfort - I bought a microfiber bed throw. This is super super comfy.
Lighting - I bought a wake up sun lamp, this allows me to gradually wake up from light exposure rather than an alarm (it has a backup sound alarm too)
Temperature - I bought a Honeywell fan to battle any higher temperatures, really great fan, super strong, reasonably quiet!
Technology - I bought some WIFI controlled smart plugs to turn on the fan in the morning to wake me up, or to turn the fan off at some point after I had fallen asleep - I use TP-Link Tapo Smart Plugs, they come with a really easy app!
Technology - When it's very cold, I sometimes use a timed electric blanket, these can make things really cosy and they turn off automatically when you are asleep.
This is what I mean by investing in your sleep, try things out and experiment a little, if you buy them from Amazon and you don't like them, a refund is super easy and quick!
Getting better sleep is an art, if you have trouble falling sleep or if you struggle to stay asleep it's something that deserves your full effort and attention.
Improving your bedtime routine can offer benefits that you will experience not only while asleep but in your waking life.
Sleeping well can improve your physical output in the day but also drastically improve your cognitive skills, alertness, awareness and learning capability. Whether you are a student, ex student, employee, entrepreneur or business owner...invest your efforts in sleep.
If you have any questions for me or other readers, pop them in the comments below. Hit the <3 icon if you enjoyed the post! (doing this also follows the post, if you have an account, which I invite you to get!)
Thanks for reading
PutSimply
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