If you suffer from poor sleep quality at night, you’re not alone. Sleep-related issues are among the world’s most common health complaints, and an inability to get a good night’s rest can really put a damper on the quality of your life. After just a night or two of tossing and turning, you’re likely to find that poor sleep quality will start to affect your mental state. You’ll be less patient with your friends and family, and you’ll probably also find that you aren’t as effective at work as you’d normally be.
For some people, poor sleep quality is a serious issue that requires medical intervention. If you think that might be the case for you, you should consider consulting with your GP for a diagnosis. Before you do that, though, it might be worthwhile to try improving your insomnia through more conventional means instead of taking prescription medications. In this article, we’re going to provide five simple, actionable ideas that may help you alleviate your insomnia and get a better night’s rest.
Our first piece of advice is one that might require a little willpower, but you’ll find that it can make an enormous difference in your sleep quality.
Stop Using Electronic Devices at Night
Using an electronic device at night – whether it’s a computer, a phone or a game console – is one of the worst things that you can do for your sleep quality. Today’s TVs and monitors are very bright, and they emit a great deal of blue light. That’s harmful for sleep quality because it interferes with your body’s production of the “sleep hormone” melatonin. These days, all major computer and mobile phone platforms offer a feature that automatically shifts the display’s colour spectrum at night to minimise blue light. That, however, only mitigates the issue – it doesn’t resolve it. If you really want to reduce the impact that electronic devices have on your sleep quality, the best solution is to stop using those devices at night. Instead of using an electronic device, try reading a book under natural light. Although eliminating your device usage at night might require a bit of willpower, you may find that it makes a profound difference in your ability to fall asleep at bedtime.
Drink Caffeinated Beverages Only During the Morning
Did you know that caffeine has a half-life in the body of about five hours? When you drink a caffeinated beverage like tea or soda, the caffeine remains in your system much longer than you might realise. Suppose that you drink your last tea of the day at noon. In that case, as much as a quarter of the tea’s caffeine content could still be in your bloodstream at 10:00 that night. Based on that, you can imagine how much caffeine must be in your system at bedtime if you’re the type of person who drinks tea or soda throughout the day. You might think that you’re immune to caffeine because you drink caffeinated beverages constantly and never feel a rush. Even if you don’t experience an overt effect from caffeine, though, it’s going to impact your sleep quality if you’re consuming it non-stop throughout the day. Make an effort to reduce your caffeine consumption with the ultimate goal of consuming caffeinated beverages only in the morning. That way, you can minimise the amount of caffeine that’s still in your bloodstream when you go to bed.
Try a Supplement That May Support Relaxation
If you’re already doing everything you can to improve your sleep quality and don’t seem to be getting results, it might be time to consider taking something that can potentially alleviate the issue. For those who prefer to avoid taking prescription medications unless it’s absolutely necessary, that means finding a helpful supplement instead. Melatonin is one of the most popular supplements for improving sleep quality – and knowing what you now know about blue light and how it suppresses your body’s melatonin production, that probably makes perfect sense. Some of the other supplements that people take for relaxation include valerian root, passionflower, chamomile and Bluebird Botanicals CBD.
Invest in More Comfortable Bedding
High-quality bedding is extremely expensive. Replacing your mattress, bed frame, pillows and linens can easily set you back thousands of pounds if you don’t skimp on quality – so skimping is exactly what many people do. If you’re sleeping on a cheap memory foam mattress that’s several years old and using a flat pillow that no longer supports your head and neck, it shouldn’t surprise you that you have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep at night. You should seriously consider investing in more comfortable bedding – even it means that you might have to cut back in other areas until you’ve finished paying the bill. You’ll spend around a third of your life in bed, and the quality of your sleep will have an impact on your effectiveness in other areas of your life. It really is a worthwhile investment to buy more comfortable bedding.
Start an Exercise Regimen to Relieve Excess Stress
The human body really doesn’t want to remain at rest all day long – it’s good for your mind and your body to get a bit of physical activity every day. Unfortunately, the reality of modern office work is that many of us spend our days doing the exact opposite of that. We remain at our desks and sedentary through most of the day, and we still come home feeling just as tired as if we’d spent the day hiking in the woods. It can be extremely difficult to find the initiative to begin a daily exercise regimen when you already spend your evenings feeling exhausted, but you’ll find that getting your body in motion every day will help you tap into an energy reserve that you didn’t even know you had. Becoming more active doesn’t have to mean doing something strenuous like lifting weights – although that’s certainly one great form of exercise. It can be as simple as going for a short walk around the block each day after you get home from work. A bit of exercise can go a long way toward helping you feel more energetic during the day. It’s also a great way to relieve excess stress, and that will help you sleep better at night.
