Sleep hygiene is a routine that helps you have a good night’s sleep. Bad habits often cause common sleeping issues reinforced over years or even decades. Establishing and practising good sleep hygiene throughout the day impacts the calibre of sleep you get each night. Additionally, it also affects your physical and mental health. You can dramatically improve your sleep quality by making minor adjustments to your lifestyle and attitude.
While sleeping, your body and mind are busy recharging cells, rebuilding tissue and restoring energy. Getting enough sleep can be beneficial for your physical and mental health. A good amount of sound sleep has been proven to lower the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. It also keeps your energy level up, fights off anxiety and improves your mood.
Did you know that your biological clock helps regulate all the processes in your body that happen over 24 hours? The process, known as the circadian rhythm, sends a message to your body when to sleep and wake up every day. If this rhythm is out of sync, you can have trouble falling asleep, leading to insomnia and other sleep disorders. The best way to maintain this rhythm is by following good sleep hygiene.
The path to better sleep starts with minor changes to lifestyle habits. Establishing routines, getting regular exercise, creating a healthy sleep environment, and changing dietary habits, can positively impact the quality of your sleep. Here are some tips for practising healthy sleep hygiene:
1. Regular Exercise
Even 30 minutes of physical exercise every day can improve your sleep quality. Exercising outdoors might increase the benefits even more since exposure to natural light helps regulate your sleep cycle. Another recommendation is to wear copper-infused compression socks while exercising, which not only prevents ligament, tendon, and muscle injury but the copper enriched helps tired and aching muscles recover faster while keeping moisture away. Besides this, your legs feel less pain and more energy which ultimately helps you sleep better.
2. Improve Sleep Environment:
It is important to make the transition from wake time to sleep time smooth by incorporating relaxing activities before bed. Practising breathing exercises, taking a bath, reading a book, or watching television can help improve sleep. Avoid stressful, stimulating activities like working on the computer or having emotional discussions. Psychologically and physically stressful activities can cause the body to secrete the stress hormone cortisol, which is associated with increasing alertness. Copper-infused bed sheets and pillow covers offer fantastic health benefits and improve sleep quality without treatments, over-the-counter medication or potentially harmful chemicals.
3. Avoid Interfering Food
Elements like caffeine are stimulants that can hamper sound sleep or even keep you awake. Do not consume caffeine in any form for four to six hours before bedtime. Although alcohol may help bring on rest, it acts as a stimulant after a few hours, increasing the number of times you wake up between sleep and decreasing sleep quality.
4. Turn off Gadgets Before Sleep
Electronic devices like laptops, mobile phones etc., emit blue light, which can lower the melatonin levels in your body, a chemical that controls your sleep/wake cycle. When your melatonin levels dip, falling asleep can be more challenging. You may assume that not being on your phone during bedtime is enough, but keeping your phone near your head can disrupt your sleep too. The message notifications, buzzing, and light that can suddenly pop while asleep can wake you up momentarily, leading to interrupted sleep.
5. Restricted Napping
Many people have a scheduled nap time as a part of their daily routine. However, for those who find sleeping throughout the night problematic, afternoon napping may be one of the main reasons. This is because naps decrease sleep drive if done abruptly. If you must nap, do it before 5 p.m and make sure it is a short one.
6. Hit the bed only when tired
Struggling to fall asleep leads to frustration and disorientation. If you are unable to sleep after 20 minutes of settling in bed, it is best to get out of bed and do relaxing activities, like listening to music or reading, until you are tired enough to sleep.
7. Being consistent
Going to bed and waking up simultaneously each day sets the body’s internal clock to sleep at a particular time every night. Try to stick to a specific routine, including weekends, to avoid a Monday morning sleep hangover. Waking up around at the same time each day is the best way to set your clock, and even if you did not sleep well the night before, the extra sleep drive would help you consolidate sleep the following night.
Some of these tips work well when included in your daily routine than others. Like most things in life, sleep hygiene requires daily maintenance and care. Make sure to create a routine and stick with it every day.
Author Bio:
Rory Donnelly – Rory is the R&D Director and passionate entrepreneur, fascinated by the workings of the human body and natural solutions for common health problems. He’s single-minded in his aim to make Copper Defence a brand that’s recognized across the globe, by partnering with global brands to make these high-tech materials easily accessible for everyone. If you’d like to get in touch, email Rory at Rory@copperclothing.com or visit copperclothing.com for copper-infused clothing, pet accessories and more.