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How to get a good night's sleep
Basic sleep hygiene
- not drinking caffeine after midday;
- not exercising too late;
- not drinking alcohol before bed;
- eating sensibly;
- leaving mobile devices outside the bedroom (artificial light disrupts the brain).
If doing natural things like this doesn’t work, then it might be wise to consult with a specialist or a doctor.
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Sleep stability
It's the key to a good night’s sleep. It means pinning your bedtime to the same time every night, even on weekends, and waking up at the same time every morning, even on weekends.
It's important to settle into a groove or a cycle that your body understands and responds to. Once you do this, you’ll sleep better, feel better, have more energy, and worry less.
The "8-hour sleep" myth
8 hours of sleep/night is a useful goal, but it’s not true that everyone needs that.
A lot of people get obsessed with this goal of getting 8 hours of sleep every single night, and because they’re someone who just doesn’t need that much sleep, or they can’t reliably sleep that long, they get anxious about it and that actually creates issues with insomnia.
Basic sleep hygiene
- not drinking caffeine after midday;
- not exercising too late;
- not drinking alcohol before bed;
- eating sensibly;
- leaving mobile devices outside the bedroom (artificial light disrupts the brain).
If doing natural things like this doesn’t work, then it might be wise to consult with a specialist or a doctor.
Get out of bed
The bedroom should be for sleeping. If you’re lying in bed for more than 15 minutes and not sleeping, just get out and leave the room.
Staying in bed while you’re anxious or not sleeping is one of the most common contributors to chronic insomnia because it trains the brain to create bad associations. So you have to break that.
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Creating a sleep-inducing environment
- Turn the temperature between 60 and 72 degrees.
- Turn off the lights. Artificial light suppresses your body’s production of the sleep hormone melat...
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Keep in sync with your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle
- Try to go to sleep and get up at the same time every day;
- Avoid sleeping in, even on weekends;
- Limit naps to 15 to 20 minutes in the early afternoon;
Melatonin
Is a naturally occurring hormone controlled by light exposure that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
Your brain secretes more melatonin when it’s dark, making you sleepy, and less when it’s light, making you more alert.
However, many aspects of modern life can alter your body’s production of melatonin and shift your circadian rhythm
Influence exposure to ligh
During the day:
- Expose yourself to bright sunlight in the morning.
- Spend more time outside during daylight.
- Let as much natural light into your home or workspace as possible.
At night:
- Avoid bright screens within 1-2 hours of your bedtime.
- Say no to late-night television.
- Don’t read with backlit devices.
- When it’s time to sleep, make sure the room is dark.
- Keep the lights down if you get up during the night.
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Fixing Your Sleep Schedule
- Push your sleep reset button and look at this activity from a new light, as if you are now trying this for the first time in your life.
- Keep a time window of 30 minutes in your bed...
Your Sleep Cycle Duration
Instead of forcing yourself to wake up at a certain time (like 5:00 am), observe your sleep pattern for a few days and find out your ideal wake up time. Ensure that your energy levels are on a high side.
Sleep Regularity
There can be numerous reasons that derail us from a good night’s sleep, as our lifestyle is not geared towards sleep by default. While tackling this is hard, it helps to make a list of all the things that make you lose your sleep, like time spent with family or a night out with friends, and try to move or reschedule it a few hours earlier or at a different time.
It pays to limit the impact of these external elements in your sleep.
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Slow-wave sleep (deep sleep) – SWS
About 80% of our sleeping is of the SWS variety, identified by slow brain waves, relaxed muscles and deep breathing.
Deep sleep is important for the consolidation of memories. New experience...
Rapid eye movement (dreaming) - REM
Dreaming accounts for 20% of our sleeping time.
The length of dreams can vary from a few seconds to almost an hour. During REM sleep, the brain is highly active. The muscles are paralyzed, and the heart rate increases. Breathing can become erratic.
Sleep quantity
Although eight hours is the common mention, optimum sleep can vary from person to person and from age to age.
One review that worked through 320 research articles concluded 7 - 9 hours of sleep are enough for adults. According to experts, too little or too much sleep can both have a negative impact on your health.
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The Science of Sleep
The average adult spends 36 % (or about one-third) of his or her life asleep.
Purpose of Sleep:
- Restoration
- Memory Consolidation
- Metabolic Health
Restoration
The first purpose of sleep is restoration.
Every day, your brain accumulates metabolic waste as it goes about its normal neural activities. Sleeping restores the brains healthy condition by removing these waste products. Accumulation of these waste products has been linked to many brain-related disorders.
Memory Consolidation
The second purpose of sleep is memory consolidation.
Sleep is crucial for memory consolidation, which is responsible for your long term memories. Insufficient or fragmented sleep can hamper your ability to remember facts and feelings/emotions.
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Sleep deprivation
Willpower, memory, judgement, and attention all suffer when you are sleep deprived.
You drop things, crave junk food sugar, overeat, gain weight. You’re more irritable, negative, emotio...
Get through sleep deprivation:
- Stabilize your blood sugar, by eating hearty food (protein and fat) more often.
- Reduce refined carbs and increase fats and proteins.
- B-complex vitamin supplements can give you an immediate boost in alertness and mental clarity.
- Soak in an Epsom salt bath - might even help you get enough energy to exercise the next day.
- Drink more water than you usually do to help compensate.
- Exercise is the single best way to “take out the trash” in your body, and after staying up more hours than you should.