What defines quality sleep? It’s not far from sleeping as soon as you get to bed, staying asleep through the entire night, and enjoying the minimum recommended hours of sleep. You should also feel refreshed, energized, and happy upon waking up.
It’s incredible how sleeping right can change your life positively in many ways. Embark on the transformation journey today with the tips below. If you encounter issues implementing them, you can engage a healthcare expert for more guidance.
With these incredible ideas, you can achieve all these and more by improving your sleep quality today.
Signs of Poor Sleep Quality
You can tell that your sleeping habits or patterns need adjustment if you feel restless and tired every time you wake up instead of the magical refreshment expected. If you take 45 minutes to one hour to fall asleep and wake up twice or thrice throughout the night, you might have poor sleep quality.
Another critical sign is if you’ve been diagnosed with insomnia or related conditions in the past six months. Staying awake for more than 30 minutes when you wake up at night shows you need to work on your sleeping pattern.
People who spend most of their days in bed have poor sleep quality. The last few signs include gaining weight due to excessive sleep, feeling more stressed than usual, and eating unexplainably at night.
Develop a Sleep Timetable and Stick To It
Do you have a sleep schedule? It’s just like a timetable that guides you when to retire to bed or wake up. A reliable schedule for an adult should include eight hours of sleep with less than one disruption throughout the night.
Ensure you stick to the plan by going to bed at the same time every day of the week, even when you’re not heading to work in the morning. Consistency lets your body get used to the schedule, and as time passes, you will get used to it.
Invest in High-Quality Bedding
Maybe you’re not sleeping well because you don’t have the right bedding. This topic is diverse because bedding generally says much about your sleep and life. Some tips to take home today include:
Consider a wedge pillow. As the name suggests, a wedge pillow is lifted on one side and slides towards the other to bring the head up a few more inches. Medically, this reduces the pressure directed at the spine, offering more support to the entire body as you sleep. Get one today, and say goodbye to back pain, snoring, and acid reflux.
Make Your Sleeping Environment Peaceful
Your sleeping environment has a significant influence. Maybe you haven’t slept enough at night because noise or excessive lighting surrounds your bedroom.
You’re strongly responsible for investing in a peaceful sleeping environment. If these noises cannot be reduced even after much effort, you can consider relocating.
You can also soundproof your walls or wear earplugs to bed. A darker theme elevates the sleep experience, and you should work on that. Fans help increase ventilation in hot areas.
Take Fewer Naps During the Day
Logically, you will hardly sleep well at night if you nap long during the day. Sleep deprivation means restless daytimes, which results in a lack of focus and productivity during the day. Things could get worse if you repeat this pattern.
When you limit your daytime catnaps, you are guaranteed a peaceful and continuous night’s sleep. If you must sleep, it should be as irregular as possible, like when you’ve travelled long distances.
Eat Well Balanced Diets
The diet also impacts sleep quality. Going to bed with an empty stomach will cause you to wake up twice or more to find something to eat, which means you may not return to sleep as soon as you should.
Being excessively full is not better, as you’ll likely not be comfortable with indigestion, nausea, sluggishness, and acid reflux. Some items are also not suitable to eat before bedtime, like alcohol, caffeinated drinks, nicotine, and excessively sugary foods.
Just take the proper meals a nutritionist recommends in reasonable quantities for a restful night.
Clean beddings
Keep your bedding as clean as possible to eliminate the chances of a complicated sleep pattern due to stuffiness, dust, and dirt. Experts recommend bedding washing weekly or bi-weekly.
Since not all bedding materials are suitable, choose the right one. Avoid weighted blankets, polyester, nylon, and flannel sheets. Cotton is the best and most medically proven bed linen and sheet fabric.
Other Ways
There are many ways to improve your sleep, but they are inexhaustible. If not for the above ideas, you could change your mattress and disconnect all your devices, like laptops, smartphones, or tablets, from the charger before you doze.
Showering before bedtime is also known to improve sleep quality. Most importantly, remember to exercise regularly to keep your body and mind fit.
