Keep A Regular Sleep Schedule
Everyone has that one unreliable friend, the one who shows up late for everything and is impossible to plan for, right?
Well, guess what? If you don’t have a regular sleep schedule, then you are being that friend to your body. Plenty of people think that sleep is as simple as “Step 1: Go to bed, Step 2: Fall asleep”, but it’s not. Sleep is actually a process that can begin as much as 2 hours before you actually go to bed!
A consistent sleep schedule strengthens your circadian rhythm. Consider adopting a “wind-down routine” that starts an hour or so before bed to let your body know that it needs to prepare for sleep.
Dim The Lights
To get better sleep, you need to send signals to your brain that it’s getting close to bedtime. A few hours before you go to bed, dim the lights in your home. This creates a sort of simulated sunset and tells your brain that it’s time to start winding down.
Keep It Cool
Have you ever noticed that it’s easier to sleep in a cold room than a hot one? You’re not imagining things. It’s biology!
Your body temperature has to drop 3-4 degrees Fahrenheit in order to fall and stay asleep. For most people, the optimum bedroom temperature is about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take a degree. So lowering the thermostat is an easy way to help yourself fall asleep!
You can also hack your body’s need for a lower temperature by taking a warm bath or shower before bed. Contact with the hot water causes blood to rush to the surface of your skin. When you come out, you experience a massive shedding of body heat and your core temperature falls. This primes your body for sleep and makes drifting off easier.
Remember: Caffeine Is Not Your Friend
Everyone knows that caffeine keeps us from falling asleep, but usually all this means is that we try to avoid drinking soda close to bedtime. What most people don’t understand is that caffeine actually stays in your system much longer than you’d expect.
Caffeine has a half-life of about 5-6 hours. This means that you can drink a can of soda (usually about 40 mg of caffeine) at 6 pm with dinner, and by 11 pm there will still be 20 mg of caffeine swimming around in your bloodstream.
These trace amounts of caffeine can lead to sleep interruptions and decrease the amount of time you spend in deep, restful sleep.
Try Natural Sleep Aids
Why would you choose a natural sleep aid over a prescription alternative? For starters, medical professionals advise against taking prescription sleep aids for a period of longer than 2-3 weeks, and some of these medications have been shown to be habit forming.
Natural sleep aids come without the hassle of a prescription, and many people find them extremely effective!
·Ashwagandha
This natural remedy has been used to treat sleep disorders since the days of the ancient Greeks! Studies examining subjective sleep quality show that people who take Ashwagandha before bed often report having fallen asleep more quickly and slept more soundly than without it.
