How to Improve Your Sleep with Simple Changes to Your Routine

According to the American Sleep Apnea Association, about 50 to 70 million Americans are suffering from sleep-related problems. Every year, more and more people are adding to the list. Regardless of the cause, the long-term results of lack of sleep are always the same: mental and physical deterioration. According to the CDC, insufficient sleep is current the epidemic of modern life. 

In addition to putting the body and the mind on edge, lack of sleep can infiltrate your goals in a variety of ways. For example, lack of sleep can be linked to increased body weight, higher blood pressure, mood disorders, lack of motivation, lack of energy, anxiety, and many other problems. In other words, if you are suffering from a sleep problem, don’t be surprised if you have a hard time reaching your goals.

Nearly 9 million Americans are using prescription sleep aids and unfortunately, all of these pills have possible side effects. Other effective activities for improved sleep can be creating relaxation and calmness before sleep or tools like hypnosis. Hypnotherapy is another very effective therapeutic approach for chronic sleep problems.

What if you are at the beginning stages of a sleep problem and you could try some home remedies to improve your sleep before it gets worse? Here are a few actions that you can try at home to get your subconscious mind working towards a deep sleep at night:

Create a bedtime routine

A mind is a habit machine. In daily life, about 90% of our actions come from habitual conditioning. Therefore, it is possible to use the same mechanism to create a conditioned sleep response. With consistent repetition and positive results, the mind will expect to sleep around the same time and the same way every night.

Create a sleep routine that works for you. Determine exactly what time you will be sleeping. From there, work backward to plan your last hour. Adding a habit like meditation or self-hypnosis can bring positive results. What else calms you down? Add these pre-sleep actions into your habit and repeat them every day. Eventually, your body will be conditioned to fall asleep following your nightly routine.

Turn off the blue light an hour before sleep

Any light overall affects the circadian rhythm which is the internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin, known to be the sleeping hormone, is the hormone that is part of the circadian rhythm. Although blue light is a natural light, it is found to suppress melatonin release, therefore affecting the sleep cycle.  Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher, states that light at night is the biggest reason why many people don’t get enough sleep.

To eliminate the light exposure, turn off the TV and phone within the last hour. Make sure to dim the lights throughout your home and minimize the light exposure before you sleep.

Turn on white noise or natural sounds

According to the Sleep Foundation, noise can significantly affect the quality of sleep. When someone sleeps in a noisy environment, they can wake up in the middle of the night or wake up feeling tired. To offset these negative effects of a noisy background, turning on white noise or natural sounds like rain or waves, can be helpful.

A study from the Journal of Caring Sciences shows that white noise improves the quality and quantity of sleep by reducing the effect of noise and inducing relaxation. Since white noise is a type of natural sound, other natural sounds like rain, waves, or wind can create a relaxation effect as well.  

Sleep is one of the most important nutrients for us, humans. If you have a sleep problem, your personal goals may get affected in a variety of ways.

Limit caffeine intake in the afternoon

We all heard that drinking coffee late in the afternoon can turn you into a zombie. This is a good one, and a real one! For years and years, researchers really focused on the effects of caffeine on sleep and they’ve been finding consistent results about its negative effects on the quality of sleep.

According to researchers at Michigan’s Henry Ford Hospital’s Sleep Disorders & Research Center and Wayne State College of Medicine, caffeine that is consumed 6 hours prior to sleep can result in significantly reduced sleep quality and quantity. Caffeine is a stimulant and it promotes alertness while inhibits parts of the brain that promotes sleep. As a result, you may find that after a late coffee, it is hard to fall asleep, stay asleep, or getting deep sleep.

Unfortunately, nowadays, many foods and drinks contain caffeine such as chocolate, energy drinks, some sodas, teas, and of course, coffee. According to Sleep Score Labs, it is recommended to cut down on caffeine at 2:00 pm latest. This applies even if you may think that you don’t get affected by caffeine. The same research above reported that when participants of the study were asked to give their perceptions on sleep after consuming caffeine, even the ones who “thought” they can have a good quality of sleep ended up having decreased quality and quantity of sleep.

Add in a relaxing activity within the last hour

Relaxation and calmness are natural cues to falling asleep. If you find that it is hard for you to be calm and relaxed, you can teach your body how to do so!

Meditation, stretching, self-hypnosis, or breathing exercises decreases the prefrontal cortex activity therefore slows down the thinking and relaxes the body. When these activities are added to the daily routine, eventually, the body gets conditioned to be relaxed and calm. You can practice these within the last hour before sleeping. Some of these practices such as self-hypnosis can be performed on the bed to be able to fall asleep easier as well.

Don’t eat late at night 

Opinions about the effects of eating food on the quality of sleep have been very conflicting in the last decade. However, the latest research shows that although small amounts of food or nutrient-dense foods may not affect your sleep significantly; mixed meals, spicy foods, or acidic foods can lower the quality of sleep.

Keep late-night eating very minimal and pay attention to not to consume any complex foods late at night. Remember, late-night eating is not only disruptive for sleeping but also it can cause weight gain.

Results

Sleep is one of the most important nutrients for us, humans. This is why there is plenty of research that has been done about the contributing factors of deep and undisturbed sleep. Improving your sleep may not be as hard as you think. Start with implementing the steps above. If you find that you are still struggling, hypnosis and hypnotherapy can be effective tools to help you sleep consistently and deeply.

Hypnosis is a naturally calm and relaxed state. Additionally, during hypnosis, negative emotions and tensions are released to decrease the mind chattering that goes on at night. If you’d like to take a deep restorative sleep without any worries, hypnotherapy may be the therapeutic tool that you are looking for!