10 Sleep Mistakes You’re Doing Over and Over Again
You have probably tried a few natural ways to promote good sleep. Maybe you swear by a cup of chamomile tea, a warm bath or regular exercise. Well, you can try all the best sleeping aids nature has to offer but they would be useless of you are still making the following mistakes:
You’re drinking too much coffee.
Your midday coffee pick-me-up could increase your odds for a sleepless night, according to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. In this study, participants who were given a pill containing 400 milligrams of caffeine (equivalent to 3-4 cups of coffee) experience disruption in sleep, regardless of the time they consumed the coffee.
You don’t eat on time.
Eating dinner late can cause havoc on your sleep pattern as your body is likely to be digesting food when it’s supposed to be asleep. Choose light meals for dinner and eat more protein for breakfast as it is harder to break, and therefore could keep you up late at night.
You worry too much.
It’s tempting to stress about how to get enough sleep, but that’s not going give you a good, long and restful slumber. In fact, the more you stress about sleep, the harder it will become to eventually drift off.
You depend on alcohol to fall asleep fast.
Alcohol can indeed make falling asleep easier. But as it wears off throughout the night, it’s likely to disrupt your sleep. In a review of studies published in the Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, scientists found that alcohol changes the normal rhythms of sleep by increasing the amount of time people spend in "deep sleep," but also decreasing the amount of time people spend in REM sleep by disrupting sleep during this stage, which is necessary for memory, concentration and motor skills.
You relax by watching TV.
Watching movies, especially those about tragedy, wars and the like, can trigger your stress levels, making sleeping more difficult. What’s more, the blue light it emits tells your brain it’s not bedtime yet, even though it’s past 11pm.
Your room is too warm.
A warm room can make you fall asleep faster, but a cooler bedroom is actually more conducive to sleep. Sleep experts recommend a temperature of between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
You make a status update before bedtime.
The glowing screen of your laptop, PC tablet or mobile phone, will only further confuse your brain by limiting the production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, just like what TV screen does. So make sure you get away from your favourite gadgets at least an hour before bedtime.
You sleep with your pet.
True, cuddling with your pet eases your stress, but its squirms, barks and kicks can disrupt your sleep. And if you are allergic to animal dander, the more awful your night will be.
You ruminate on the bad things.
If you have the habit of thinking about the negative things which happened during the day – that awful meeting you had to sit through at work, the unexpected meeting with your ex, or the failing health of your grandmother – all these make it impossible to sleep. And even if you do, you’re likely to experience poor sleep. Same applies to worrying. Bedtime is not a good time for worrying or ruminating. Consider bedtime as your “me-time”. Just relax, keep off the worries, and let the soothing touch of your pillows and blanket comfort you throughout the night.
You love hitting the ‘snooze’ button.
Think you’re getting a few extra minutes of sleep? Yes you are. But hitting the snooze button wrecks your natural sleep cycle. This habit is actually doing you more harm than good. For instance, if you are in REM sleep and you interrupt it with the snooze alarm, this can lead to an inability to process and reconcile emotionally laden memories from the previous day. Disrupted sleep can result in moodiness, cognitive problems, and trouble paying attention.
Which of these bedtime mistakes are you guilty of? Share your comment below.
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