There are many benefits and studies related to good sleeping routines and quality sleep. For example, people who get enough sleep have improved social skills, learning skills, and decreased health problems risk. Meanwhile, people who cannot get enough sleep tend to develop the opposite trait.

1 — It improves learning skills.

2 — It improves fat loss and weight control.

3 — It decreases health problems risks.

4 — It reduces stress and improves mood.

5 — It increases energy levels.

6 — Improved social skills.

How to make your P erfect S leeping Routine

When you work on improving your sleeping routine, you want to consider three things:

What do you do during the day?

What do you do before going to bed?

How do you get out of bed?

I’ve been working on my sleeping routine for a while now and tried many solutions. So here are a few suggestions you may want to experiment with to improve the quality of your sleep and, therefore, your mood and productivity.

1 — Don’t drink coffee in the afternoon.

I’ve been drinking coffee for many years without any rules because I thought I was immune.

A few months ago, I started tracking my sleep data and comparing it with coffee consumption. So I noticed if I stop drinking coffee after 3 p.m., my sleep quality increases, and I can have longer deep sleep sessions. And deep sleep is the stage of non-REM that affects body healing and enhances ATP production.

Also, I noticed I stopped waking up frequently during the night. So my sleep quality improved overall, and I feel more energized in the morning.

Nowadays, backlit digital devices like smartphones and laptops are the worst enemy of good sleeping routines. And if you take them into your bed, they will expose your eyes to artificial light that affects your ability to fall asleep.

The scientific reason behind our sleep/wake pattern revolves around many chemical reactions and hormones like melatonin, adenosine, and cortisol.

• The first increases in dark environments and helps us fall asleep.
• The second increases in bright environments and makes us feel tired.
• And the third helps us wake up feeling refreshed and restored.

3 — Make sure there is no light in your room.

The darkness affecting melatonin production doesn’t only matter before going to bed but also while you are sleeping. Therefore when preparing your sleep environment, make it as dark as possible to improve your sleep quality.

In Italy, most of our homes have curtains that blacken the room completely. But I know some homes don’t have it. So if you are in one of those situations, try to make your room as dark as possible. For example, you could use darker curtains.

4 — Stay at a comfortable temperature.

According to studies, the optimal temperature for sleeping  is around 19°C. But this temperature is hard to maintain during summer. So I did not care about it too much in my experiments and aimed for the best solution.

During winter, I noticed a good feeling when sleeping under a hot blanket when the temperature hovers at 19°C. But in summer, I am satisfied with 22–23°C. Otherwise, I feel cold.

So try some setups, if you can, and make sure your temperature is around the optimal one.

Each of us has his strategy to fall asleep. And some of us did not even need one. But in case you do, there are many to test out.

• Mindfulness is the technique that helped me the most, but it requires training before mastering it.
• Relaxing yoga is a technique I tried a couple of times, but it never worked for me.
• Breathing techniques are a great way to relax, decrease stress, and allow your body to fall asleep faster.
• The pilot’s strategy is a technique that soldiers use to sleep. It is similar to a body scan but has relaxation instead of investigation purposes.

When searching for your perfect sleeping routine, you also need to search for an efficient waking-up system.

If you want to improve your sleep-wake pattern, you need to fall asleep and wake up at the same hour. This way, your circadian rhythm aligns with your new routine, and you can benefit from better sleep quality and improved energy when waking up.

Many people suggest putting your smartphone away. But with vocal commands, this technique doesn’t have the same efficiency as before. Usually, an alarm clock is more challenging to deactivate than your smartphone, and it will wake you up.

Final Thoughts

Sleeping is one of the central systems of our body, so you can’t neglect it.

If you want to live a healthy life, you need to find your perfect sleeping routine that improves your sleep quality and duration.

• Limit coffee usage in the afternoon.
• Avoid backlit devices before going to bed.
• Darken your bedroom as much as possible
• Keep the temperature of your bedroom around 19°C.
• Find a strategy to fall asleep.
• And get an efficient waking-up system.

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