Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.
Sleeping well is essential to stay rested, perform at your best and enjoy good health.
But let’s ask these questions: is it hard for you to fall asleep? Do you rarely get to sleep through the night? Do you wake up tired or do you usually wake up? If this situation continues over time and ends up becoming a habit, that is when we would begin to notice the effects of lack of sleep.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
1. The importance of the mattress
The first thing to do is check if we have a mattress that provides us with the rest we need since, if we have a mattress in poor condition, this could be the main cause that you cannot sleep well. It must be taken into account that a mattress has a useful life of 10 years maximum, and after, it loses its effectiveness and ability to rest. Therefore, if your mattress is more than 10 years old, you should renew it as soon as possible. You should consider looking at The Sleep Station for more information.
2. Your surroundings
In addition to the mattress, it is essential that the bedroom is a good place to rest, giving us tranquility, silence and the ideal temperature to sleep well. These three factors -light, noise and temperature- directly influence our rest and can generate sleep disturbances if they are not appropriate.
Light: A warm and soft light is the most recommended for our room before going to sleep. Do not use bright lamp lights or exposure yourself to the blue light of electronic devices, as they increase stress levels and will make sleep lighter and you can wake up more frequently during the night.
Noise: It is one of the most important factors and one of the main causes of insomnia. Excess noise causes a poorer quality of sleep, alterations in our stress levels, bad mood and a decrease in our ability to react. It is important that your bedroom is free of noise to sleep well
Temperature: During sleep the body temperature is lowered. The body redistributes heat from the inside to the most peripheral areas such as arms and legs.
3. Avoid or reduce naps
Naps are beneficial to recharge your batteries in the middle of the day, but they can be your problem sleeping. For this reason, you should avoid naps after 15 hours and for more than 30 minutes, because they could interfere with sleep and, therefore, with your daily rest.
4. Watch your diet
What you eat also affects your rest, being important to eat a healthy and balanced diet, as well as avoiding going to bed too full or hungry, as this could keep you awake. And not only that. Poor sleep also has a detrimental effect on our diet and physical fitness since, if we wake up and cannot get to sleep, we can incur the famous “binge syndrome”, eating in the middle of the night. It is important to have a light dinner and at least two hours before going to bed, avoiding copious dinners that require a long digestion.
