If you're looking for tips on how to get better sleep, then you're already halfway there, because it means you fully understand that the quality of sleep is crucial to keeping you healthy. In fact, sleeping well and waking up rested serves not only to be more productive, responsive, and more focused during the day, but also actively contributes to the prevention of certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, depression, and metabolic disorders.
Sleep quality depends on multiple factors, which pertain as much to your behaviors as to your sleeping environment. By modifying them, therefore, you will be able to sleep better and more. Let's see, then, how to sleep better by adopting good practices and avoiding the use of sleeping pills and psychotropic drugs.
How to sleep better: habits to change
What if we told you that among the 5 tips on how to sleep better is one that requires a drastic change in certain behaviors? Unfortunately, that's exactly what it is. In fact, many of the things you do before you fall asleep are real enemies of sleep, starting with that last cigarette. You need to avoid it, because nicotine is a substance that stimulates brain function. For the same reason, give up taking alcohol in the hours before sleep: this substance, too, as much as it seems to relax you, significantly impairs the REM phase and promotes micro-awakenings, causing, in the long run, several sleep disorders, including the dreaded insomnia.
Also, remember that before bed a little Pilates or yoga can help, but avoid like the plague any kind of physical activity that prevents the necessary relaxation of the body. If you really don't want to give it up, treat yourself to a short walk after dinner.
But among the tips on how to sleep better is another suggestion: turn off devices. Tablets and cell phones, in fact, diffuse blue light, which has the power to fool the biological clock, which, thinking that it is still daytime, will not produce the correct amount of melatonin, a hormone essential for falling asleep.
How to sleep better: the circadian rhythm
Before you ask yourself how to sleep better, you had better focus your attention on when to do it, because your need for sleep is closely related to your circadian rhythms. In the early 1990s, in fact, it was discovered that our entire body is regulated by a biological clock, programmed in such a way as to configure itself as an evolutionary advantage. It is clear, in fact, that by always knowing what to expect, the whole body can set itself up to function at its best.
Improving sleep quality, therefore, also means facilitating the rhythms of your biological clock by trying to go to sleep at a time when your body is predisposed to fall asleep. Fifteen percent of individuals are programmed to go to bed late and wake up late in the morning. Another 15 percent, in contrast, experience drowsiness in the last hours of the afternoon and give their best by waking up very early in the morning. All others, are greatly affected by the arrival of darkness and the consequent production of melatonin. How best to sleep, then, also depends on your ability to understand and intercept the needs of your circadian rhythms.
How to sleep better: light or dark?
If you want to know how to sleep better and longer, a basic rule to follow is to sleep in a dark environment. Light, in fact, can interfere with sleep by affecting the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates the sleep-wake rhythm.
In particular, artificial light from lamps, televisions, and electronic devices has the ability to overstimulate the brain and delay the production of this hormone, making it more difficult to fall asleep and have a deep and restorative sleep. In addition, sleeping with the light on can negatively affect sleep quality by increasing the number of nighttime awakenings, resulting in fatigue and sleepiness during the day.
Therefore, if you want to sleep better at night, it is important to make your bedroom dark by resorting to blinds, shutters or blackout curtains. And in case this is not possible, try eye masks, which do not let light filter through your eyelids: it may feel uncomfortable, but trust me, you will get used to it in a few days.
How to sleep better: the power of supplements
If you are looking for ways to sleep better, you may have heard of sleep supplements. But how exactly do these products work and what are the most common?
Sleep supplements are usually composed of substances such as melatonin or magnesium, which help relax the body and promote sleep. Melatonin, for example, is a hormone that our bodies produce quite naturally, and when this does not happen, sleep can be impaired. Taking small amounts of it through supplements, therefore, helps the body to predispose itself to sleep, fall asleep more easily, and ultimately sleep better and throughout the night.
Natural remedies for better sleep also include the ever-appreciated chamomile tea, which is completely free of side effects, and valerian, also recommended for its ability to promote falling asleep without leaving drowsiness upon awakening.
How to sleep better: the importance of mattress and pillow
How to sleep better and wake up refreshed certainly depends on all of the above, but there is one more piece of advice to consider: check that your mattress and pillow are right for you.
How is it better to sleep with back pain? How to tilt the bed to sleep better with reflux? How to sleep to breathe better? Here, these are the questions you should ask to figure out how to sleep better and longer. Start with your issues and then consider whether your mattress and pillow really help you fight insomnia or, on the contrary, make it difficult to fall asleep and sleep longer.
If this is the case for you, know that orthopedic pillows and mattresses are created with this very purpose: to promote correct posture during sleep and relieve any discomfort so that the body can rest better and more.
Discover the benefits of Pharmaflex orthopedic pillows and mattresses. Of course, you won't be able to go without a waiver on all the other tips for sleeping better, but it will all be useless if the surface you sleep on is not the correct one. Try it and see: how you sleep better depends mostly on you and your choices.
