If you’ve ever spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, you probably already know the importance of getting a good night’s rest. If you don’t sleep well, you might suffer from all manner of different health complaints, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and even obesity and diabetes.
With that said, then, it’s important to know what kind of habits you should adopt if you want to improve your sleep quality. Some of the things you’re doing before bed might actually be hindering your chances of getting a good night’s sleep, so without further ado, let’s take a look at the dos and don’ts of boosting sleep quality.
Do try to meditate and clear your mind
Meditation can be a great way to get better sleep; according to Betway casino, meditation both massively improves the quality of your sleep and also lowers the amount of time that you’re spending awake during the night. Being interrupted while sleeping can have deleterious effects on your health, so if you make sure to set aside around half an hour each night for a meditation session, you could give yourself a much better chance to doze off and stay snoozing all night.
Don’t check your phone
Believe it or not, checking your phone before bed is one of the worst things that you can do. Your phone emits blue light, which is fine during the day but which can disrupt your sleep during the night. Try not to use your phone for around an hour or so before bed. If that’s difficult, your phone might have a low blue light mode, so try enabling that. At any rate, try to avoid things like work notifications or group chats with your friends, as these things can make you more excited than you should be before you sleep.
Do go for a walk
Going for a walk is a great way to prepare your body for rest. By giving yourself a small workout prior to sleep, you’re allowing yourself to work off the day’s excess energy without pushing yourself too hard. Your body doesn’t need a strenuous and difficult workout; lifting huge weights or going for a lengthy run before you sleep will likely have a negative impact on your sleep quality. However, going for a short walk – say around 15 minutes – an hour or two before sleeping could be beneficial to you.
Don’t watch scary movies
It might go without saying, but watching horror movies, or anything that’s going to get your blood pumping, is a bad idea if you’re hoping to sleep well. You might adore a good horror movie, but your adrenaline will start to course if you’re scared. While that’s great fun when you’re not about to hit the hay, your body might end up stuck in fight-or-flight mode, which is the last thing you want when you’re hoping to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow.
Do put on calming music
Just like horror movies, it can be a bad idea to engage with heavy or complex music before bed. Progressive rock might be good fun to listen to during the day, as you can absorb all of its time signature changes and cryptic lyrics, but at night, what you need is something simple and straightforward. Calming ambient music is a good option, as is a soundscape app that can play sounds like rainfall or a waterfall cascading over some rocks. Essentially, your body needs consistency in sound when it’s trying to sleep.
Don’t check the news
Staying informed about what’s going on in the world is a good idea; shutting it all out will likely just stress you out more in the long run. However, if there’s one time when it’s a terrible idea to check the news, it’s right before you sleep. Even if the news is good (which it often isn’t these days), engaging with current events will likely wake your brain up and keep you switched on. Calm yourself down by shutting out external distractions when you’re trying to sleep, including the news.
Do sleep in a dark environment
Darkness is extremely important for sleep. Even though your eyes are closed, they’re still registering the ambient light levels around you, and if you’re surrounded by too much artificial or harsh light, you’re going to find it hard to sleep. Try to make your sleeping environment as dark and low-light as possible; shut curtains, wear an eye mask, and turn off any bedside lamps or ceiling lights if they’re on. This will help you to settle into an atmosphere that’s conducive to good sleep.
Don’t eat right before bed
If you feel peckish before bed, try not to have a big meal. Instead, opt for a smaller and more easily digestible snack. Bigger meals can weigh heavily on the stomach, which can in turn prevent you from sleeping as your body attempts to digest the food you’ve eaten. Try a handful of nuts, a small piece of fruit, or something equally snacky. Try to eat meals at least a few hours before sleeping if you can, and your body will thank you for it with a better sleep cycle.
Do set a sleep schedule
Keeping a consistent sleep schedule is one of the best ways you can make sure you’re looking after your body as best you can. Set a time each night when you’re going to go to sleep and try to get to bed as close to that time as possible. Be strict with yourself; don’t let yourself slip by ten or fifteen minutes here or there, because that’ll quickly turn into hours, and before you know it, your sleep schedule will be just as hectic and disordered as it once was.