Sleep hygiene is one of the human privileges that we do not appreciate until we lose it. Some will think that this is a daily activity that we all naturally do, while for others it will become a daily nightmare that they cannot escape.
Napping and restful sleep allows us to face the day with clarity and energy. Rest helps us have good physical and emotional health. When we sleep, we create memories while consolidating learning by improving long-term memory. It also has a "cleansing" effect on the body, during sleep metabolic processes occur that eliminate toxins from the nervous system. It allows us to recover and save energy for the wear and tear we will experience the next day. Therefore, sleep and rest are an essential function for our normal development and well-being.
Not everyone can perform this function completely normally. Many people suffer from insomnia, having difficulty falling asleep, spending hours tossing and turning in bed and boredly watching the clock tick. If you are one of these people, here you will find sleep hygiene rules that will help you have a restful and quality sleep.
What is Sleep Hygiene?
Sleep hygiene is a set of behavioral habits that enable us to achieve and maintain restful sleep. Like most of the stimulated activities we engage in throughout the day, falling asleep requires some instruction to achieve optimal activation or “deactivation” of the nervous system; In other words, we need to prepare our body and mind to fall asleep.
Pay Attention to Your Sleeping Environment
In order to ensure sleep hygiene and fall asleep correctly, we need the environment to be suitable for this. Sleeping with background noise, cold or hot, light will not help us in this regard. Prepare your room for sleeping. Don't turn on the television, minimize noise, wear comfortable clothing and keep the room at a comfortable temperature.
Use the bed to sleep. When we use the bed for activities other than sleeping, whether you are studying, watching television, eating, or doing another activity in bed, what you are doing is creating an association between the activity and the bed. So the bed becomes an activating stimulus and therefore when you get into bed your nervous system tends to be activated.
An exception to this is found in sex. This activity allows us to relax and therefore induces sleep.
Ritualize Your Rest
Before going to bed, you can do a number of activities to help you fall asleep. You can read something light (not in bed), take a shower, or drink a hot drink. These activities promote relaxation so sleep occurs more quickly.
Many of us can make the mistake of going to bed while still active and not giving the body enough time to “slow down.” What we end up with is that we toss and turn in bed, anxious about not being able to sleep until this happens, and by doing so we further activate our nervous system, creating an anxiety-activation-insomnia cycle. Therefore, it is important to create a transitional activity between activation and sleep.
Watch What You Eat
What we take with us to bed will also affect our sleep. Large meals will require our bodies to work throughout the night to digest food. Considering that metabolism slows down during sleep. Forcing the body to digest is to overexpose it to metabolic activity.
On the other hand, going to bed hungry will not allow us to rest. Therefore, a light but filling meal is the best way to help the body achieve metabolic reduction naturally.
Stay Away from Stimulants
As we said, one of the basic activities to fall asleep is to reduce the stimulation of the nervous system. What we achieve when we take stimulants is to increase this excitement. Do not take stimulants in the afternoon, stay away from coffee, tea, energy drinks and stimulants.
Avoid Alcohol
Contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not help us relax. While it is true that alcohol makes us drowsy and induces sleep more quickly, this sleep will not be restorative. We will experience more night awakenings throughout the night, which will reduce sleep quality.
Get Some Exercise
Exercising helps us fall asleep, but we must take some things into consideration. Firstly, it should be a moderate exercise, moderate exercise helps us fall asleep, on the contrary when we do a high intensity exercise we will be able to activate our body and will need plenty of recovery time. We will need hours to return to normal heart rate and restore electrolyte balance.
Another thing to consider is the time to do this exercise. Exercising in the afternoon or evening, close to bedtime, will activate our body.
Be Careful When Napping
There's no doubt that napping is relaxing, but it can affect nighttime sleep. Control your nap time, don't nap for more than 20 minutes and don't do it in the afternoon. You might also consider taking a nap for a while and see how this change affects your night's rest.
When insomnia occurs when we go to bed, tossing and turning will increase anxiety and create a connection between the bed and insomnia. If you find that you haven't fallen asleep for 15 minutes, get up and do some relaxing activity, you can practice some relaxation techniques or read something light, when the drowsiness reappears, go to bed.
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