Optimal Sleep Essential Tips For A Healthier Sleep Routine
By Barsha Bhattacharya
18 November, 2023
Health & Fitness
Last Updated on: December 28th, 2023
If you’re not getting enough restful sleep every night, something is wrong with your sleep routine. Sleep or bedtime routine refers to activities you usually do in the hour or less before bed.
These activities could be healthy, meaning they promote sleep, or unhealthy because they harm your sleep.
If you don’t have a bedtime routine or don’t think you need one, you may be switching up activities before bed, which may interfere with your sleep schedule.
This article develops some essential tips for a healthier sleep routine. So, let’s understand it all here in this section.
Risks Associated With Poor Sleep
It may be that you are doing well in terms of your eating habits but aren’t doing well with sleep. There is a possibility that you are not getting the optimal sleep. In that case, it will affect you physically. Hence, you have to suffer. Here, we discuss some of the major problems associated with low sleep.
Lack Of Alertness
If you miss out on your daily sleep, then it may affect you inwardly. Your lack of alertness can affect your performance in the professional world.
Excessive Daytime Sleepiness
You may have developed a habit of waking up at night and sleeping late till afternoon. Ultimately, you have to suffer. Excessive sleep can harm you from all corners, especially during the daytime. So you have to be aware from all ends.
Relationship Stress
Lack of sleep can make you feel moody, drastically affecting your behavior. Hence, you must always be highly alert so that it doesn’t harm your personal relationships.
Chances Of Facing Car Accidents
If you remain drowsy all day, then there is a high chance that you will find it difficult to ride the car. If insufficient, it is bound to affect your driving from within. Hundreds and thousands of road accidents are attributed to tiredness (lack of sleep).
So, it requires no rocket science to understand that the optimum level of sleep can indeed be an individual’s need.
Some Tips For A Healthy Sleep Routine
It’s important to adopt sleep hygiene tactics that promote restful sleep for a healthy sleep routine.
Here are tips to get you started.
1. Limit Daytime Naps
Sleeping during the day can throw off your body clock, which determines when to sleep and wake.
Try limiting daytime naps, especially long ones, for a healthier sleep routine.
While some studies encourage short, half-hour power naps to recharge and boost brain function, you must keep them consistent and take them in the early portion of the day.
Basically, keep naps short and regular, and take them early to avoid disrupting your sleep cycle.
2. Fix Your Bedroom
Sometimes, your bedroom is the main reason you’re not sleeping well. Before you start worrying about your mental state or any other possible culprit, look closer.
Your environment can either promote relaxation or not. If you turn your bedroom into a gaming or movie enclave, your mind will likely associate it with those activities and not sleeping.
As you build a healthy sleep routine, make your bedroom a space for no other activity but rest. Get in the habit of preparing the room for sleep by cleaning around, cutting out noise, and minimizing artificial lights.
3. Put Away Electronic Devices
After a long day, you probably just want to lie in bed with a remote control or scroll through your phone until you fall asleep. It may feel like a relief, and you may fall asleep, but it will likely result in an irregular sleep schedule.
Computer, TV, and smartphone screens produce an artificial version of the sun’s blue light, which your brain uses to regulate your sleep cycle.
When you expose yourself to blue light shortly before bed, it tricks your mind into thinking it’s daytime and you need to stay awake. As a result, your brain prevents or reduces melatonin production, a hormone that responds to darkness to induce sleep.
Put away electronics as you begin your nighttime routine. If possible, stop using these devices earlier in the evening to minimize the disruption associated with them.
4. Take A Warm Bath
The more relaxed you are, the easier it will be to fall asleep. Your aim is to ensure your body isn’t too active or stimulated when you go to bed because those states are associated with being awake.
One way to prepare your body to shut down is to take a warm bath or shower. Warm water is super therapeutic. It soothes your nerves and muscles, allowing you to relax.
The drop in body temperature after a bath is also crucial to a restful sleep as it speeds up the natural nighttime drop in body temperature.
5. Try Supplements
If your sleep pattern is irregular or you struggle to get restful sleep, you may need additional help. You could get melatonin supplements, which boost melatonin production.
Besides supplements, you could try natural herbs that promote relaxation and induce sleep, such as ginkgo biloba, chamomile, and valerian root.
Alternatively, you could try cannabis. While it’s not fully studied, it has much potential as a medicinal herb.
Besides helping you sleep, cannabis can relieve symptoms of various health conditions like multiple sclerosis, diabetes, migraines, and vertigo.
Just remember that cannabis is not a magic pill. Health issues like vertigo, for instance, call for proper diagnosis and evaluation to determine if it’s the right option for you.
6. Get A Book
Books have a unique way of filing away stressful thoughts and getting you to loosen up. You can make reading part of your sleep routine.
When reading material that’s not too exciting to keep you alert, you’ll find it easy to relax and fall asleep in no time.
In Conclusion
It’s not difficult to sleep better, even if there are things standing in your way. What you need is to prioritize quality sleep and to commit to putting in the work. With some lifestyle adjustments, you can create a healthier sleep routine that fits into your life.
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