You probably know that you should be getting better sleep. The benefits of great sleep are incredible: You’ll be happier, more productive, more energetic, and healthier. Quality sleep can even lower your risk of serious diseases and illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. Meanwhile, bad sleep can wreak havoc on your daily life. Without proper sleep, you’ll be more irritable, tired, and sickly. You won’t perform as well at work, and your personal relationships might suffer, too.
But sleep is a habit. And, like most habits, it’s hard to change. If you’re sleeping poorly, you need to make a real effort to change your ways if you’re going to enjoy the advantages that come with a great night’s sleep. And to do that, you’re going to have to pinpoint the problems with the sleep that you’re getting now. Here are a few reasons that you could be getting lousy sleep, along with our ideas on how to change them for the better.
Your sleep environment isn’t dark enough
Your body expects to sleep during the night and be awake during the day. But it’s not enough for it to simply be nighttime — it needs to feel like nighttime.
Night, naturally, is pretty dark. So your sleep environment should be, too. If you have light intruding into your bedroom, consider grabbing yourself some blackout curtains or investing in a sleep mask to keep things really dark.
Your sleep environment isn’t quiet enough
It’s hard to get to sleep when you’re dealing with noise. Do your best to keep the place where you sleep as quiet as possible!
If you can’t get rid of the noise in your area, try using a white noise machine. White noise is easy to drown out, and it can help cover up more disruptive sounds. White noise can also help those of us who suffer from tinnitus.
Speaking of tinnitus, white noise machines are not your only treatment option. Tinnitus sufferers may wonder about supplements and treatment pills. For instance, does Tinnitus 911 work? For some people, it does! It’s well worth trying this option out if your tinnitus is affecting your sleep.
Your sleep environment isn’t cool enough
Comfort is key when it comes to sleep. Our bodies prefer a slightly cooler environment than usual when we’re resting, so consider lowering your thermostat a bit at night — you’ll get better sleep and will save a bit of money on your heating bill at the same time.
Be sure to keep up with your home comfort systems and their maintenance needs, say experts in ac repair Cape Coral. In hot areas, proper HVAC maintenance can make a world of difference to your sleep quality and, therefore, to your overall health.
Caffeine and alcohol are messing you up
Alcohol and caffeine are great, don’t get us wrong. But they’re not great for your sleep cycle, at least not when consumed before bed. Caffeine will keep you awake longer than you’d like to be. Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but the sleep that you are getting after you’ve ingested alcohol is simply not as good as the sleep that you’ll get when you fall asleep on your own. That’s because alcohol disrupts REM sleep.
You’re not sticking to your routines
Your sleep cycle is just that — a cycle. To get great sleep, you’ll need to line up your sleep cycle to your circadian rhythms and really stick to your routines and habits. You should be going to sleep and waking up at the same time pretty much every day. While there’s nothing wrong with the occasional late night on a weekend, you should be aware that the best sleep comes with the steady and reliable sleep schedules that we build with consistent bedtimes and wake-up times.