Simple sleep tips that are easy to forget.
1. Don’t eat sweets just before going to sleep
Not only can this cause nervousness, but it can also lead to hypoglycemia after a few hours, which will wake you up. On the other hand, you can take a protein food (cottage cheese, fish, meat) a few hours before going to sleep. This will help you produce tryptophan and melatonin (sleep hormone).
2. Sleep in total darkness…
If your eyelids receive light, you interrupt the production of serotonin and melatonin. If you have to get up at night to go to the bathroom, try not to turn on the light.
3. Keep your alarm clock and phone away from your bed
Their noises and flashing lights can be distracting. And looking at the numbers on your alarm clock (2am, 3:15am, 4am…) can only add to your anxiety.
4. No television just before bedtime
Better yet, no television in your room. Television excites the brain too much. It also disturbs the pineal gland. On the whole, television and the Internet very easily make you go to bed an hour or two later than you should.
5. Sleep in a cool atmosphere
Many homes are overheated, especially in the bedrooms. However, below a certain coolness, you will probably be bothered by the cold. The ideal is 19°.
6. Reserve your bed for… sleep
If you’re used to watching TV or working in bed, it can make it harder for you to relax and fall asleep. This is because your brain does not distinguish between work and sleep. So avoid these activities in bed.
7. Consider taking a separate bed
Recent studies show that for many people, sharing a bed with someone can be very disruptive to sleep, especially if the other person is a restless sleeper, gets up at night, or snores. The habit of sleeping together in the same room has only become established since the industrial revolution, when people moved to cities where space was expensive. In Roman times, the marital bed was not used for sleeping, but for something else ? .
8. Exercise regularly
Other studies also prove that after moderate physical exercise, the subjects studied fell asleep on average 15 min earlier and slept 45 min longer. However, don’t exercise just before going to sleep because it will keep you awake.
9. Always go to bed at the same time
Your body needs to be used to it. By going to bed at the same time every night, you avoid having a kind of constant jetlag. Especially on weekends when we usually stay up a bit more. If you try to stay in the same time slots, you will avoid a feeling of jetlag on Monday morning.
10. Lighten your blankets and wear socks.
It may sound funny, but as the least well irrigated part of the body, feet are often the first to get cold. As soon as you get too cold, your body starts to move to warm up. There is a risk of waking up and the quality of your sleep decreases. One study has shown that having warm feet increases the quality of sleep, especially if you are prone to Raynaud’s syndrome.
11. Follow-up by a professional
If your insomnia problems persist. A study conducted by the University of Bergen, Norway, concluded that behavioral therapies are more effective than sleeping pills. In six weeks of treatment, people with insomnia who underwent this therapy increased their effective sleep time from 81.4% to 90.1%. In addition, they had longer deep sleep phases and woke up less often than the other two control groups (one of which received a zopiclone sleeping pill and the other a placebo).
