Getting a good night’s sleep can be refreshing and rejuvenating. Yet for millions, a good night’s sleep seems out of reach. People of all ages around the world suffer from occasional or chronic insomnia.
Insomnia is a condition that disrupts your ability to fall asleep or stay asleep. If you suffer from this sleep disturbance, you may hesitate to turn to strong medications to help you fall asleep. Here are 5 ways you can help improve your sleep naturally.
Eliminate caffeine
The morning cup of coffee seems to be a staple drink for many people. However, caffeine is not only found in coffee. Caffeine can be hidden in the cola you drink, tea, and even some of the foods you eat. While it may not be possible to eliminate caffeine from your diet 100%, try to limit your caffeine intake only in the mornings. Prevention magazine tells us that ingesting caffeine, even 6 hours before bedtime, can disrupt sleep.
Exercise
Not only does exercise help you maintain a healthy body weight and better mental outlook, but a Sleep Foundation study found that those who exercised had less sleep during the day and slept better at night.
While a new exercise routine may leave you a bit tired at first, regular exercise will give you more energy and help you fall asleep at bedtime. This may have to do with the chemicals your body releases when you exercise. The neurotransmitters released by the brain during exercise have all kinds of beneficial properties, and improving sleep is one of them.
To meditate
Meditation has a restorative effect on the brain. There are all kinds of benefits that meditation can have for a person. Many of the benefits of meditation include stress reduction and a better ability to cope with difficult life problems.
Meditation is also great for insomnia. A Harvard study found that mindfulness meditation helped fight insomnia. It invokes a relaxation response in those who participate by helping them relax enough to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep through the night. If you are unfamiliar with how to meditate, there are many guided meditation audio programs that you can purchase or check out at your library.
Sleep hygiene
Sleep hygiene is a practice that helps you sleep better at night. It has to do with environmental signals. Alaska Sleep notes that these environmental cues should be taken into account if you are not sleeping.
• Use the bedroom only for sex and sleep
• Without electronics
• Keep the room dark and quiet
• Keep your room cool
• Have a good mattress
• Move the alarm clock away from your bed
Get up every morning
Getting up at the same time every day and avoiding naps helps your body follow a circadian rhythm. According to Verywell, we need this to get a good night’s sleep. There are two really important elements in this step.
1. Stop pressing the snooze button and train to get up at the same time every day. If you hit the snooze button once or twice (or 6 times), you’re not really training to get up at the same time every day. If you know you don’t need to get up until 7:30, stop setting the alarm for 7. Save yourself 30 minutes of interrupted sleep and set the alarm for 7:30, get up the first time it goes off.
2. THERE IS NO SIESTA. If you are not used to getting up in the morning, this may be the difficult part for you. Napping can mean you don’t have to sleep at night because you’re just not tired enough to go to bed on time. Skip the nap (and the caffeine) and stay awake so you can get a good night’s sleep.
Now you have an arsenal of information that should help you fall asleep faster at night. Remember, finding what works well for you may require some testing. So if you don’t get it right the first night or two, don’t give up.
These sleep strategies have been shown to work. They just take time. Give them a few weeks and you should be sleeping soundly.