Healthy Sleeping Habits are Important in Order to Improve the Quality of your Life! Having a good sleep hygiene is very easy by doing minor adjustments to your day-to-day life. However, the impact of improving your sleep hygiene will lead to astonishing improvements in your life. Good sleeping habits can improve:
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Memory
During sleep, your brain practices the skills that you learned while you were awake. This process is called consolidation. Giving yourself plenty of night sleep in good conditions will definitely improve your memory and learning skills.
Creativity
While you are sleeping, your mind reorganizes and reconstructs memories which can lead to improved creativity! Even quick naps can be beneficial in terms of spurring creativity.
Recovery
Athletes know this very well. Sleep helps them recover from their training. A study from Stanford university identified that football players had less fatigue and better speed performance after sleeping for 10 hours per night for 8 weeks.
Healthy Weight
Sleep and metabolism are controlled by the same sector of the brain. That’s why you get hungry when you are sleepy! Furthermore, sleeping early and for at least 8 hours is proven to speed up your metabolism and decrease your hunger levels during the day.
These are just some of the benefits that come with having healthy sleeping habits. Some other benefits include but are not limited to:
- Reduce inflammation
- Increase attention
- Improve student grades
- Lower stress
- Help you avoid accidents
- Avoid depression
- Etc
Healthy sleeping habits have great benefits for your life. Let’s see how to start practicing good sleeping habits:
Start to follow a sleep schedule
Try to sleep and wake up at the same time each day including weekends! I know that this may sound weird but it will help you to regulate your body’s biological clock and will definitely improve how easy you can sleep.
Sleep on a comfortable mattress and pillow
Make sure that you mattress is comfortable! People often fail to understand a mattress that’s not supportive and only realize it when they finally do! Remember that mattresses have a life expectancy of about 10 years! If the time for your current mattress is up, make sure to have a look at the best foam mattresses that you can replace it with or have a look at the best gel mattress toppers that can help you improve the quality of your sleep without having to spend a lot of money on a new mattress.
Mindful meditation for 5-10 minutes before you get in bed
The stress of the day can hijack your night sleep. In order to relax and prepare yourself to move on from the day stress to the night sleep allow yourself to disconnect from everything for 5 to 10 minutes. During those 5-10 minutes try to meditate and get rid of the intrusive thoughts that the day stress produces.
Avoid naps
While naps are a great way to get some quick rest during the day over-napping and napping while not really needing it may ruin your night sleep! In order to avoid poor night sleep because of your day naps you should steer away from naps that last more than 30 minutes aim to not take any nap 4 hours before of your night time sleep.
Exercise daily
Daily exercise (or almost daily) can help you get better sleep at night. It’s recommended to do both aerobic and strength training in order to get the maximum benefit out of it! However, if you are not into a fitness level that you can do this, even walking for 30 minutes per day can do the job. Remember that any activity is better than no activity!
