Getting enough night sleep has been a challenge for many people, but its merits cannot be overemphasised as it plays a significant role in your health and well-being as well as protecting your physical health, mental health, quality of life, and safety.
Experts have also listed some benefits of sufficient sleep to include: improves learning, keeps you alert, helps you to make decisions, helps to maintain heart health and hormone balance, and protects your immune system.
Considering the importance of observing adequate sleep, it is imperative to discuss easy ways of achieving it, in order to assist those experiencing insomnia .Below are top five tips to get good restful night sleep, as reported on MedicalNewsToday:
- Stick to a Sleep Schedule
Try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day – even on the weekends.Recent research has shown that sleep regularity is associated with higher levels of morning and evening happiness, healthiness, and calmness during the week, while irregular sleeping patterns are linked to poorer academic performance, delayed sleep and wake timings, and a delay in the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin.If you struggle with sleep, try sticking to the same sleep routine and you may find that after a while, you may no longer need an alarm.
- Increase Exposure to Daylight
Taking a stroll outside in daylight for at least 30 minutes each day has been advised to have sufficient sleep. Exposure to electrical lighting has been shown to delay our internal clocks by around 2 hours. Scientists have recently discovered that the solution to resetting our clocks and resolving our sleeping woes could be as easy as spending more time outdoors in the sunlight.
- Decrease Exposure to Blue Light at Night
Sunlight is the largest source of blue light. Blue light regulates our circadian rhythms, which tell us when to sleep, and boosts alertness. Blue light from sunlight can benefit sleep, but blue light is also found in most LED-based devices, which can harm your sleep.
Limiting use of digital devices close to bed time may help to reduce sleep-disrupting blue light exposure.
It is no secret that most of us have snuggled up with our smartphone or digital tablet, or watched television from the comfort of our beds at some point. These habits that we have so quickly developed could be heavily contributing to our inability to sleep properly. Research has indicated that blue light emitted from digital devices could increase the risk of sleep complications.
- Up Your Physical Activity and Diet quality
Regular exercise could significantly improve your sleep quality. Getting out the door for your 150 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per week not only gives you a post-workout glow, but it has also been found to improve sleep quality by a staggering 65 percent.
- Practice Mindfulness-Based Meditation
Mindfulness-based techniques may help you to manage your sleep issues.
Mindfulness meditation aims to increase mental focus, improve awareness of thoughts and experiences, and decrease stress, and so it can be a useful technique for managing sleep issues.
A growing body of evidence suggests that mindfulness helps to manage stress, anxiety, depression, weight loss, relationship difficulties, and productivity, and it has now been hailed as the latest tool to deal with sleep disturbance.
