Coming to Bed Is Now a Lot Less Stressful Thanks to These 8 Revolutionary Sleep Tips

Lateet July 11, 2019

About 1 out of every 3 Americans don’t get enough sleep. Chances are, if you’re reading this article, you’re one of those people that struggles when coming to bed.

We certainly don’t blame you if you’re not sleeping as much as you should. After all, carving out time to relax can be extremely difficult.

If you’re sacrificing your sleep to get other stuff done in your life, that other stuff that you’re prioritizing probably isn’t getting done very well.

So, in order to make it so you’re always feeling your best and to ensure that when you are awake, you’re putting your best foot forward, we recommend exercising our tips below to ensure that you’re maximizing bedtime!

1. Expose Yourself to Light Contrast

Our bodies naturally want to sleep when it’s dark outside. The issue is that modern technology has undermined that instinct.

Now when it’s dark outside, you just turn on a light.

We’re not advocating that you stop using lights in your home. What we are saying is that you need to be tactful with your light usage to make sure that your body can still differentiate between lighting conditions that mean bedtime and lighting conditions that mean staying awake.

By exposing yourself to bright lights while you’re awake and keeping your bedroom dark, you should be able to maintain a better natural sleep rhythm.

2. Don’t Consume Caffeine Late at Night

We all love coffee. Heck, if it wasn’t for coffee our team wouldn’t have been able to muster up the energy to write the blog post that you’re reading right now!

Here’s the thing though… Drinking coffee in the morning when you need to push through your day can be a good thing. Drinking it for fun at night before bed… That’s going to wreak havoc on your ability to get shuteye.

3. Stop Napping

Is there anything better than napping throughout the day? We don’t think so.

While napping certainly feels like a good idea in the moment, it does have some negative side effects. The biggest being that it throws off your body’s clock and can make it near impossible to get to sleep at night.

If your aim is to spend more nighttime hours asleep, one of the lowest hanging fruits that you can pick to achieve that end is to stop giving your body naps during the day. A nap-deprived body is a lot more desperate to rest in the evening than a body that has had the luxury of sleeping periodically throughout the day.

4. Make Your Bed for Sleeping

Thanks to our mobile phones, bedtime tends to be half about sleeping and half about staring at your screen late at night to catch up on the latest Twitter gossip. Our recommendation is to put your phone/tablet/whatever else you like staring at down and keep your bedtime focused on getting to sleep.

If whenever your body hits the mattress your brain expects for you to pull out your phone, it’s going to have a hard time skipping over that habit and going straight towards shutting your body down for the night.

5. Try to Keep Your Bedroom Comfortable

One of the biggest culprits when it comes to coming to bed and getting to sleep is an uncomfortable bedroom. After all, who the heck can sleep if they’re sweating bullets during a hot summer night?

The solution to this problem isn’t much of a mystery. The more comfortable you make your bedroom, the easier it’s going to be to relax and doze off.

Turn on the AC, put a fan in the window, try a different sleep position, etc.

Put a little effort into perfecting your sleeping environment and you’re going to catch a lot more Z’s in the evening.

6. Calm Your Mind

Do any of you treat coming to bed as the time to lament on all of your problems? We know that we do.

When your brain is worried about today’s mistakes and tomorrow’s trials, it’s not going to be able to settle into sleep mode.

There are medications that can help with these ruminating patterns or, if you’re opposed to medication, you can try natural relaxation techniques like mindfulness meditation to get your brain to calm down.

7. Keep Late Night Meals Light

Everybody likes a snack before bed. The more you eat though, the harder your digestive tract is going to have to work and the more likely that your brain is going to be kept up while your stomach settles.

Do your best to avoid eating late if you’d like to keep your stomach from keeping your body awake. If you need to eat, try to keep snacks light and healthy.

8. Fight The Temptation to Break Your Routine

Your body is a habitual machine. The more that you subject it to good habits, the easier that doing those things will become.

As you take our advice and start perfecting your sleep habits, fight the urge to cheat by grabbing a heavy snack or by spending 15-minutes on your phone in bed.

One cheat could undermine all of your hard work, so stay strong and stay focused on snoozing!