How to sleep better? – and why this even matters

When working remotely, productivity, efficiency and clear mind are three most important factors. To increase your chances to get them applied to your daily routine you simply need to sleep well and it is as important as your exercises and healthy diet.

Poor sleep has immediate negative effects on your brain function, performance of exercises as well as your hormones – this is all backed up by the research. Poor sleep can also cause quick weight gain and increase disease risk. In contract, a good sleep habit can help you eat less, exercise better and be much healthier.

Unfortunately many of us have a low sleep quality as well as quantity, this is usually caused by stress, in past I was giving you a good guide to meditation and I really urge you to look into it as this, if applied correctly and with healthy dose, can increase a quality as well as quantity of you sleep!

I have prepared 10 tips below, which should help you achieve that goal:

1. Increase exposure for a bright light during the day

As mentioned in previous articles, your body has a natural time-keeping clocked built in, this is knows as circadian rhythm. This affects your body, brain and hormones, helping you to stay awake and informing your body when time to sleep comes. Natural sunlight, which is great for you anyway as it is providing a dose of vitamin D, helps you keeping the healthy track of your day, it also improve quality of sleep during the night time, sleep duration should be also improved.

Sleep efficiency can be increased even by 80% and amount of sleep can go up to by 2 hours if you only spend 2 hours exposed to bright light during the day. Try getting daily sunlight exposure or invest in an artificial bright light device or bulbs, I won’t lie – the first, natural and free option is best, try to find time for this. Artificial alternatives would not provide vitamin D to your body, you also won’t get fresh air from it.

2. Completely cut blue light exposure in the evening

As mentioned above the natural light exposure during the day is beneficial for your body but night time light exposure will have completely opposite effect. This is due to your built in clock which is tricking your brain into thinking it’s still a daytime, basically by watching TV, playing with phone or tablet, or working late at night you are cheating your body that it is still a day when it’s not. I can imagine this would be the hardest habit to get rid of so how to decrease the blue light exposure in the evenings?

• wear glasses which can block blue light
• see if your device has function to block of blue light in the settings
• install the app that blocks blue light on your devices, these are available for iOS and Android devices.
• Stop watching TV and play with other electronic devices 2 hours before heading to bed. I have noticed that Amazon Kindle device is quite good and helps limiting blue light effect

3. Avoid consuming caffeine and rich in sugar food late in the day

It is proven that caffeine has number of benefits, a single done can enhance your focus, energy and exercise performance. However, when you consume it late in the day, caffeine will stimulate your nervous system and will stop your body from developing natural relaxing at night. The latest you should have a dose of caffeine is around 2pm or 6-8h before you go to bed as it will stay elevated in your blood system for 6-8 hours. Same rule goes for sugar, this will keep you awake for longer, it is a good as a boost in the morning but sadly it will kill efficiency in the evening.

4. Go to bed and wake up at consistent time

Your body and brain are like one big, advanced computer, if you program it in a certain way, it will follow the patterns and after some time you would not even need actual clock, reminders or alarm clocks, your body will be sending natural signals that there is a time for a sleep or it will wake you up naturally. To start with I will recommend to go sleep at the same time during the week and the weekend just to develop the habit for few weeks, after this pattern is fully adopted by your body you can change ritual during the weekend to give yourself more entertainment time.

5. Avoid drinking alcohol

Couple of innocent drinks at night can negatively affect your sleep and hormones. Alcohol is known for causing and somewhat increasing the levels of sleep apnea, snoring and disrupted sleep payers. I also affect night time melatonin production which is vital to your circadian rhythm.

6. Optimise your bedroom

Your bedroom environment and its setup are the key factors in getting a quality sleep at night ! These factors include temperature, noise, lights as well as furniture arrangements. If you can hear noise, for example from a traffic, this can lead to a poor sleep as well as long term health issues. To optimise your bedroom to most sleep-friendly environment, try to minimise external noise, light exposure. Make sure your bedroom is a quiet, clean, relaxing and enjoyable place. Make sure temperature is around 20 degrees (70 Fahrenheit) as this is most comfortable temperature. I also use Sharp Air PlasmaCluster air purifier which helps me keeping the quality of air in the room in clean and healthy manner !

7. Avoid eating late in the evening and drinking water just before going to bed

Consuming a large meal before going to bed can lead to poor sleep and hormone disruption, this is because you affect natural release of HGH and melatonin making your sleep being heavy and you might be waken up due to stomach problems, your body need sleep time to relax your muscles and improve your condition, by providing heavy meals you are giving unnecessary tasks for your body to deal with. You should also avoid drinking water just before going to bed, you are not a plant, you don’t need to stay hydrated during the night, all this would cause is more lavatory visits during the night and therefor lower quality and quantity of sleep.

8. Relax and keep your mind clear in the evening

A pre-sleep routine is important and can improve a quality of sleep similarly to meditation. Strategies for that include listening to relaxing music or audiobook, reading actual book, taking a hot bath, meditating, deep breathing and visualisation. I suggest you try out different methods to find the one which will suit you best.

9. Get a comfortable bed setup

Some people see that they are able to get a better sleep when away in hotel on holidays or during business trip. As you spend same hours in bed that you will at work and in fact more as you spend 8 hours every day in the bed for your entire life. It is absolutely vital to have a comfortable and decent bed setup, make sure your bed, mattress, pillow and even quilt are of a high quality. Make sure you replace your mattress and bedding every 3-5 years depending on their quality to avoid sleeping on environment which has negative impact on your health. Don’t forget that headaches, back pain, shoulder pain, back stiffness can be caused by bad sleeping environments. Here you should not save money, this is something which pay you very quickly in awesome health condition and reliability during the working day.

10. Avoid exercises before the bed time

Exercise is a must have feature of your daily life however it is not advised to do it before the bed time. It may cause the sleep problems, muscle pains, quality of exercise in the morning will be simply 100% better and will have positive impact on your day, where one performed just before sleep time will cause more issues.

I truly hope you have enjoyed this BLOG, if so please feel free to leave a comment down below or email me directly by using “Contact me” tab on the top of the page. I’m thrilled to hear how you getting on with your daily routine.

All the best,
Lucas