How to Sleep Better

The ultimate goal of everyone should be to live a healthy, happy and productive life. In order to do that we optimise our nutrition, we exercise regularly, we optimise our work schedule and try to balance our life in generall. Sleep is often the area of our life we don't take a look at, but in order to live this happy, healthy and produtive life, we definitly should take a look at our sleep. Bad sleeping habits effect basically every aspect of our life. It effects our performance at work, our daily exercise, our mood, the way we interact in relationships and it even effects our sex life. In the age of digitalization we often spend our nights watching TV or scrolling through social media, but we still have to be at work or school at 8 o'clock in the morning, so many adults and children often get less than 6 hours of sleep, which is far less than the recommended 7 to 9 hours a night. In this article I want to share some quick tips, which are easy to apply, on how to improve your sleep in order to improve your life.

1.NO Screens 1 hour before bed

This is probably a tip that you have heard about, but I still want to talk about it, because it is the most common mistake that people make. The light that comes from our TVs or our phones and especially the blue light inhibits the bodies realease of melatonin. Melatonin is also known as the sleeping hormone and it makes your body tired and ready for sleep. So by looking at our screens right before bed we signal our body that we are right in the middle of the day and seriously mess with our circadian rythm. In order to prevent that I recommend not looking at screens for the last hour before going to bed or wear a pair of blue light blocking glasses. Instead just pick up a book and read until you get tired.

2.NO caffeine 10 hours before bed

It takes the body 5 hours to get rid of half of the caffeine that you consume, so in order to prevent caffeine affecting your sleep in a negative way, go for caffeine free drinks in the evening and the late afternoon.

3. NO heavy meals 3 hours before bed

Our digestive system messes heavily with our sleep, so in order to increase the quality of your sleep dont eat 3 hours before you go to bed and avoid late night snacking.

4. NO exercising 2 hours before bed

The body realeases cortisol and other stress hormones while exercising and it takes a few hours to get rid of them. Those stress hormones interfere massively with the quality of your sleep.

5. Set a wake up time AND bed time

To get to school or work in time, we set an alarm clock to wake us up, but we often forget to set an alarm clock when to go to bed. Everbodys circadian rythms differ from each other, so there is no optimal amount of sleep that goes for everyone. You have probably heard of the night owl and morning lerk, which divides the population in two groups based on the length of their circadian rythms, which are not precisly 24 hours long. Figure out how much sleep you need each night in order to perform on top level and which wake up time works best for you. Try to follow this sleep schedule even on the weekends, so your body gets used to it.

Bonus Tip: How to fall asleep immediately

1. Relax your facial muscles.
2. Relax your legs.
3. Relax your arms.
4. Focus on your breath and whenever a thought comes to your mind recognize that, let go of it and then come back to your breath.

I hope you found those tips helpfull and I want to clarify that I am not a sleeping expert. If you want to get a deeper insight in sleep research I recommend reading Why we sleep by Matthew Walker. You can listen to it for free on google podcast or any other podcast platform.