We all know sleep is important but why do we not take steps to improve it. A few simple ways someone can improve quality of sleep.
Acclimate to the natural light
It is becoming more and more rare to see people out and about in the early mornings, going on walks, runs, and cycling. Obviously people are trying to avoid person to person contact and working from home during the pandemic is becoming more popular but getting outside is one of the best ways to improve your health and sleep. When we get outside first thing in the morning our bodies circadian rhythm syncs up with whatever time zone you are in. If we stay indoors all of the time and do not expose the receptors on our skin or in our eyes to natural light then our body never truly knows if it is noon or midnight. This can affect the quality of sleep that we get. One of the easiest ways to incorporate this tip is to eat breakfast or drink your morning coffee outside on your patio, deck, front porch or even sitting in front of your window with the window open. If you have not been getting outside much in the mornings and are having issues with your sleep, this tip may help.
Avoiding blue light at night
Hopefully most of you have heard of blue light by now. The sun emits blue light and is one of the main drivers of your circadian rhythm like mentioned above. However, electronic devices, screens and artificial lighting also emits blue light. This artificial blue light can mess with our wake/sleep cycles. With the natural light outside, the sun emits blue light during the day to keep you awake and alert. As the sun starts to go down the sun starts to emit less and less blue light until it is dark, then it is emitting no blue light. Once our bodies start to sense this change in light, melatonin production begins. Melatonin is a hormone that makes us sleepy and helps with sleep. By keeping your body exposed to artificial blue light once the sun goes down you are slowing down and inhibiting melatonin production. This may cause you to stay awake for hours once you lay down for bed. A few simple things you can do is wear blue light blocking glasses once the sun goes down, limit artificial light in your bedroom with black out curtains and moving electronic devices outside the bedroom or simply putting your phone on airplane mode. I have heard that the cheaper glasses do not work as well as the more expensive kinds.
Keep yourself cool
60 to 67 degrees is the ideal temperature to get the most quality out of your sleep. When the temperature in the room is not in this ideal range you do not get as good of restful sleep. Also if the temperature is too hot like during the summer time it will affect your ability to fall asleep faster. This tip is a little harder to control for most people. If you have an air conditioning unit or a thermostat, this is a lot easier to control. I do have a few tips that I have used to help keep myself cooler when I sleep. First thing is, I typically sleep in the nude...yep, it’s true. Less clothes equals a cooler temperature, it does help. Also you can take a cold shower or bath before bed if you are super warm. I used the cold shower tip before bed during the hottest part of this last summer and I noticed major improvements in ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and feeling rested in the morning. If you do not have an air conditioning unit or a thermostat to regulate the temperature in your room, you can always use a fan to keep things cooler. Lastly, some companies use water cooled mats that are put under you when you sleep that keeps you at an ideal temperature, however, I have never tried this.
Bedtime tea
This may have been one of the biggest game changers for me! I have a hard time turning my mind off at night and I am constantly thinking about things/learning new things. I sometimes find myself up at 11pm researching new things that I heard about and being wide awake because I am a nerd and I am excited about new things. This definitely affects my ability to fall asleep. Staring at the pitch black ceiling till midnight with my mind racing, knowing I need to get good sleep, is stressful. I knew I needed to do something to calm my mind down. That is when I stumbled onto this bedtime time. I noticed a huge difference when I started drinking this, right away. I typically go to bed at around 9:30 pm or so, so I start drinking this around 8:30 pm. After about ¾ of the way through the cup my mind starts to slow down and I begin to feel more sleepy and tired. I definitely would give this a try if you struggle with a racing mind at night.
Stay grounded
Nikola Tesla (Tesla, Inc. is named after him) was a scientist in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and was the scientist that wanted to harness earth's electrical charge to power the world. However, there is no way of regulating this and charging people for using power, so it never flourished (we could all be getting power for free right now). Earth has an electrical charge, and humans have an electrical charge in all of our cells. When we expose our skin to earth's surface the negative ions get taken into our bodies and used. These negative ions help detoxify use from environmental pollutants and some scientists say actually improve circulation by attaching to red blood cells, which then the cells repel each other due to being the same charge (they don’t clot as easily). Now that my tangent is over I will get to how grounding helps with sleep.
It is actually pretty simple and is similar to tip one, grounding helps acclimate your circadian rhythm to whatever time zone you are in. By exposing yourself to earth you reset your circadian rhythm, which would be super helpful for those of you that tend to travel to different time zones for work. What my girlfriend and I do at night is, we ground ourselves through the grounding portion of the electrical socket. We bought grounding straps that insert into the ground outlet that straps to our body. Which the grounding outlet is attached to a big metal rod sticking several feet into the ground under your house. Using electrical conducting wires from the grounding rod to the electrical socket, the earth is brought inside the home to run electronics and to power you with negative ions.