Helpful Health Tips

A Few Tips For A Better Night’s Sleep

Insomnia and the lack of sleep affects thousands of people every day and will cause problems with our mood, productivity, immune function, and cognitive ability. Not getting a good sleep is connected to all sorts of health problems, including tooth decay, visible aging and formation or wrinkles, muscle pain, and slower recovery time. Improving the quality of your life can be as easy as improving the quality of your sleep; after all, depression and mental disease occur at higher rates in those that sleep badly. Here are a few tips to help you get a better night’s sleep.    

If you find yourself having trouble getting to sleep, it may be in part due to what you do just before bedtime. Engaging in relaxing activities like reading, listening to soothing music, and doing yoga or some form of stretching can effectively relax the mind and body. Watching TV might help, but TV can stimulate the mind and make falling asleep more difficult. It is important to avoid activities that remind you of stress or work so that you can relax your mind and prepare it for sleep this probably means getting off the computer.    

Another thing is that you should try not to eat or drink anything (except water) two hours before bed. Eating and drinking will either energize you and make you feel more awake or it will convert to stored energy in fat if you do go to bed soon after. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants, both that make the mind more alert, so avoiding these things in the evening is a good idea if you want to fall asleep easily. Although alcohol is a depressant and can help you get to sleep, chances are that it will make you wake up later on in the night and you may have difficulty going back to sleep after that. Alcohol can also cause dependency, even if taken regularly in small amounts, and then falling asleep without drinking can become harder to do.

Exercise during the day improves sleep at night. Exercise can help your mind and body feel the need to sleep and it can get you back into a routine of sleeping well. Because many jobs require people to be indoors, internal circadian rhythms can be thrown off. Physical outdoor activity can help restore this. Instead of taking naps during the day, which will detract from the more important night sleep, go to bed earlier and sleep primarily during the night.

If your sleep environment is not comfortable, you will not sleep as well as you could. This seems obvious but it is often overlooked. There are subtle ways of improving a sleep environment: try aromatherapy with candles or incense, make sure the mattress and sheets you sleep on are comfortable, and make the room you sleep in cool, dark, and quiet.

Sleep is a natural thing to the body, so do not think that pills or drugs are necessary to sleep better. If you want to improve your mood and productivity and if you want to get sick less often, finding ways to sleep better is a wonderful solution.

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