How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Last update February 15, 2019

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If you’ve noticed that you don’t get enough sleep and often wake up in the middle of the night, it’s time to ring the alarm bell and try to adapt new healthy habits to improve your sleep quality. Even though there can be a lot of factors affecting your sleep, like stress at work, relationship problems, etc. there’s a way to get a satisfying sleep. In this article you’ll find some of the key tips following which you will fall asleep quicker, sleep better, and wake up with a better mood.

1. Stick With Your Own Schedule

Believe it or not, yet, following this only advice can help you get a better sleep. Go to bed and wake up at the same time, sticking with your own schedule, and after a couple of weeks, you’ll find it easier to fall asleep. Your internal clock will get used to the same routine pattern, promoting better sleep. Easier said than done, you may say, for if you have long been suffering from sleep-related issues, you know exactly how difficult it may be to get distracted from daily tensions and relax. Well, if that’s the case, make sure to darken your bedroom, draw the curtains and switch off TV. Give yourself some time to wind down after a working day. Don’t force yourself to sleep. It’s not going to happen just like that and may easily take you days or even weeks to develop a new habit.

2. Exercise

It’s been proven that people who are into sports sleep much better, therefore if you haven’t been into sports just yet, it’s high time to start exercising. After an intense workout, your body will be longing for some rest and will actually need sleep to recover. If you don’t do any sports at all and most of the time spend at the computer, there’s hardly anything to recover from, not to mention that stress only grows during a day. It’s not for nothing people living a healthy lifestyle do a lot of physical exercises

3. Start to Track Your Sleep

You may not take this advice seriously but it does work. Start to write down on paper what exactly worries you and why you think you cannot have a restful sleep. Track down how long you’ve been sleeping before you get up bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night. It’s important that you don’t miss out on any sleep-related detail and write down everything you do before you go to bed - what you eat, what exercises you do, how long you walk in the fresh air, and so and so forth. For this purpose a lot of people today use fitness trackers, allowing you to do exactly the same. They can tell you how long you spend in each of the sleep stages and show you the real picture of what deteriorates your sleep quality.

4. Spend More Time Outdoors and Take a Shower

Don’t ignore evening strolls. According to numerous research, walking in the evening a couple hours before going to bed can promote a better sleep. It will also allow you to spend some time for yourself, deep in your thought, help relax and clear your mind of the tensions of a day. If you still don’t feel quite relaxed, take a hot bath or shower. 10-15 minutes of soaking in hot, soapy water will soothe your body and mind, bringing you comfort. Try to make it your new ritual and stick with it every day.

5. Make Your Bedroom a Cozy Place to Be In

To make a transition to sleep easier, you should keep your bedroom clean and well-ventilated. The bedding should be comfortable to allow you for a restful sleep too. What mattress do you sleep on? Is it of the right density? What sleeping positions do you find more comfortable, on the side or on your stomach? For stomach sleepers, we’d recommend getting a memory foam pillow that can be chosen of a different shape to fit better under your hips. For all the rest, including those suffering from snoring problems, we’d offer considering getting a good pillow too that will keep your both head and neck supported.

6. Drift to Sleep in a Gentler Way

People who suffer from poor quality of sleep often manage to fall asleep with either music or TV on. Even though this might work for you, don’t let this habit develop. Like we’ve said above, in order to relax and let your nerves and brain wind down, the light in the room should be avoided. Using a sleep mask can help block the exposure of light. Try to set a new habit of falling asleep to the sounds of nature, a much healthier alternative to the sounds of radio or TV. People with sleep disorders often buy alarm clocks, playing the sounds of ocean waves, forest, rain, etc. The beauty about modern clocks is that they don’t emit too much light and automatically switch off after a certain period of time (set by a user) when you’re supposedly already deep into sleep.

7. See About How You Sleep

The common issue most people with trouble sleep face is sleeping on a mattress that gets too hot in summer. To avoid this kind of problem, you could get a double-sided mattress featuring two different sleeping surfaces, one of which you could use for summer months and the other one for the winter. Keeping an electric blanket by your bed would be handy during winter, especially if you often get cold and wake up in the middle of the night.

8. Avoid Drinking Coffee

Talking about getting a good night’s sleep, think about how many cups of coffee and milky-based drinks like latte and cappuccino you usually have during a day. Containing caffeine, all of these drinks will stimulate your nerve system and won’t let you drift into deep sleep.

9. Watch What You Eat

Office work and long hours away from home are the major reasons why a lot of people who know the negative effect of eating shortly before going to bed still do it. We come back home from work, throw a big meal, then wait 30 minutes at best and go to sleep. This is where the problem lies! Our stomach just can’t digest all the food during this short amount of time and may easily interfere with sleep. If for any reason you cannot eat earlier, substitute a big meal for lighter snacks like crackers, cheese, milk, yogurt, etc.

10. Quit Bad Habits

Smokers, more often than anybody else, have sleep-related issues. Just like caffeine, nicotine affects brain activity and often leads to breathing disorders which in turn may keep you awake for a long time. If you’ve decided to get on a path of a healthy lifestyle it’d be sensible to follow the above-said tips and quit smoking as well. A physical desire for a fag, according to research, weakens and/or completely disappears within the first 3 days after you quit.

Following these simple rules should help you drift to sleep much easier and quicker, contributing to your better health and well-being. Of course, if sleep disorders have become a serious problem and nothing helps, you should get the help from an expert.