12 Easy Tricks To Massively Improve Your Sleep Quality
By: Josef Cruz
Tags: Health, Lifestyle, Life, Sleep, Self Improvement

12 Easy Tricks To Massively Improve Your Sleep Quality

I tested these tricks for better sleep and productivity. It worked fabulously.

Photo by Rafal Jedrzejek on Unsplash

Personally, I think sleep is underrated. I’m definitely no sleep expert, but I can’t help but notice the positive effects of regularly getting a decent night’s sleep night after night.

Over the last few months, I’ve been slowly tweaking my sleep habits to reach the optimal conditions so that I can get the best quality of sleep as often as I can.

My decision to improve my sleep quality wasn’t because I’m an insomniac or anything — in fact, I’ve always considered myself a good sleeper — but it was thinking about the whole notion of sleeping at a deeper level. It’s believed we spend approximately one-third of our lives sleeping. Assuming we were to live up to the ripe old age of 80, that means we would have slept for 26.6 years during our lifetime.

Given that we spend so much time sleeping, I think it’s fair to say that we should be doing it right. When we can get a quality night’s sleep time and time again, the benefits will be clear to see in our everyday life. We’ll be in a better mood every day. We’ll be happier and have more energy.

Here are some top tips on how to improve the quality of your sleep:

1. Go to bed at the same time every evening

It’s becoming increasingly uncommon to find someone with a regular bedtime these days. With our careers taking so much of our time, on weekdays, we only have the time between the end of our workday and when we go to bed to fit in as many personal chores as we can.

This can lead to setting a bedtime that’s either too late or too irregular for us. This often results in us not getting enough sleep. For most of us, we can’t get up later because we have jobs to go to, so we must go to bed earlier every night.

I used to consider 6 hours of sleep to be enough for me. I’ve since tried to increase it to at least 7, with the optimal number of hours between 7 and 8.

It’s been a bit more challenging for the past year or so to get 8 hours a night of sleep due to my 6 am morning routine I have in place. Since I don’t really want to shift my morning routine back any later, I decided to move my bedtime to an earlier time.

I now go to sleep at 10.30 pm when before I was going to sleep around midnight. This only left me with 6 hours, which is not enough. I am now getting enough sleep every night.

2. Nap if you have to

There will be occasions where you cannot stick to your regular bedtime. For example, sometimes we have parties or are out late with friends, and it is these occasions can screw our regular bedtimes up and put us right back where we started.

When possible, try to take a nap to make up for hours lost rather than sleeping in and getting up later. However, approach this with caution as it’s easy to nap for too long then be too awake at our bedtime.

3. Make sure you are comfortable

It may seem very obvious at this point, but I’ve been neglecting this aspect for years because I ignored my body signs. Besides, I knew it would take too much effort to sort this problem out.

For the last decade, I have been sleeping on a firm mattress, which I thought was good for me even though I always woke with aching shoulders. I also slept on cheap pillows, which didn’t help matters. Since then, I have ordered a new Tempur cloud mattress. Now they are expensive. I am now sleeping better than I ever have before, and you can’t put a price on a good night’s sleep! I couldn’t recommend the Mattress or the pillow more, and they both go down as the best investments I have made in my life to this day.

4. Wind-down

It’s a good idea to have an activity that you do just before bed to signal to your brain that it’s soon time to sleep. Before, I used to halt whatever I was doing whenever I felt tired. Sometimes I’d be watching a movie, playing video games, or working on my business, and my brain activity wouldn’t be ready to switch off and rest suddenly.

Reading is a good winding down activity, especially since there isn’t any bright glare from an electronic device. Every night I spend about 10–20 mins reading a book before feeling too sleepy to continue.

5. Don’t exercise too late in the evening

This may not affect everyone, but it’s probably best not to exercise too close to your bedtime. After exercise, your blood is pumping through your body at an increased rate, and your breathing is up, which aren’t optimal conditions to relax and fall asleep. This may not be of concern to you, or perhaps you do not have any other time to exercise, in which case you can ignore this point.

However, if you are having problems sleeping and exercising too late, consider switching your workout session to the morning.

6. Cut the caffeine early

I never let myself drink any kind of tea or coffee or anything that contains caffeine after 6 pm. Caffeine can keep you awake and delay the time it takes you to fall asleep. Make a caffeine cut-off point that works for you.

7. Don’t drink too much fluids at night

This tip is not for everyone, but I have a bladder like a two-hundred-year-old man, and small amounts of fluid before bed can have me getting up in the middle of the night heading for the bathroom.

Some people like to have a drink before bed because the body can become dehydrated during the night. This is true, but this doesn’t work for me. Instead, I am to have a glass of water next to me to drink first thing when I get up.

8. Keep it dim before bedtime

To get the body ready for sleep, you need more Melatonin to be produced before your sleep. Melatonin is produced most effectively when it’s dark. Therefore it’s a good idea to slowly dim your lights as you get nearer and nearer to your bedtime.

By 10 pm, I’ll already have my main lights off and use table lamps to light the room. This also applies to electronic devices with a backlit screen. Computer screens, iPods, iPad, mobile phones, and television screens can be bright enough to slow down melatonin production. It may be a good idea to turn off such devices for at least 30 minutes before bed.

9. Keep it completely dark

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the best conditions for sleep are complete darkness. However, with so many electronic devices and power outlets that emit light during the night, the likelihood of negatively impacting our sleep has become greater. If you have a clock that emits light, either get a new one or cover up the lighted display.

Turn off all devices from the power source to stop any other lights shining in the night. If light manages to creep past your curtains, get thicker curtains, or buy a comfortable eye-mask to block out any light.

10. If you do get up at night — keep it dark

If you have to get up in the middle of the night, try not to use too bright a light to get back to sleep. A flashlight to go to the bathroom is the best solution to move around the house, albeit you could be confused as a burglar. Would you rather get back to sleep or be considered a potential burglar by another member in your home? The choice is yours.

11. Make it the right temperature

This is overly obvious, but you don’t want to be too cold or too warm. When it’s too hot, you’ll toss and turn, and if it’s too cold, you won’t be comfortable enough to drop off to sleep. Open windows, close windows, get a thicker duvet, use air-conditioning, turn up the heating, use a fan, use a hot water bottle, and use all that you have available to make sure you are at an optimal temperature for you to be comfortable and sleep through the night.

12. Plan for tomorrow

This was a big one for me. To sleep all the way comfortably through the night, you need to put your mind at rest and tie up any loose ends. Haven’t you experienced a time where you had a problem, and you couldn’t get to sleep because you kept thinking about it? Or you couldn’t sleep because you were thinking about all the things you have to do in the morning?

Put your mind at rest by planning tomorrow’s activity the night before. When you go to bed, knowing firmly in your mind what you must do when you get up, you’ll notice your mind is in a more relaxed place to come to rest.

You don’t have to geek out on all this sleep stuff as I did, but hopefully, you can see that a few regular small changes can have a really positive effect on your energy levels, productivity, and well-being.