Sleep Enough

Sleep hygiene is worth knowing because it might actually improve your sleep quality. You might or might not have heard of sleep hygiene, but the easy definition is it’s the daily habits that you practice to fall asleep easier, and to stay asleep longer.

One of the basic tenets of good sleep hygiene is going to bed at a fixed time. This reminder might seem trivial, but our body actually runs on an internal clock, and without a set time to go to bed and wake up, our sleep cycle can never be healthy. Of course, it takes discipline and effort to adhere to a fixed bedtime, and today’s modern living lifestyle (and shift jobs) makes the task more difficult than it really is.

Refrain from eating a heavy meal just before bedtime. A light meal can prevent hunger, which can keep you awake, but eating too much can divert excess energy towards digestion and metabolism, which will also hamper sleep. It can also cause heartburn when lying down.

Relaxation exercises before bedtime are important. At the very least, get into the habit of “winding down” before you sleep. Meditation is effective and simple, but not easy at first. The safest and most basic meditation one can practice is breath meditation, or watching the breath for 15 minutes before sleep. You don’t really need to practice other more “fanciful” types of meditation; breath meditation is usually good enough on its own.

Related to breath meditation is progressive relaxation; whereby you relax one part of your body followed by another part, until finally, the entire body is relaxed. Some people cannot carry out this exercise though. If you belong to this group, give this relaxation technique a try. Try flexing and releasing your toes intermittently, until you start feeling tired. Such focus on your toes actually helps the rest of your body to relax.

Bathing before sleeping definitely helps you to fall asleep. It does not really matter if the bath is hot or cold, but it depends on your bedroom temperature. A hot bath one hour before sleep will initially cause your body temperature to rise, and then fall, once you lie in bed. This temperature drop does help you fall asleep. However, this is also dependent on your bedroom temperature (and climate). If the weather is hot, you’d probably feel much better with a cold shower.

The old adage of not sleeping when you don’t feel sleepy, applies too. Many times, we lie in bed for hours and not fall asleep because we just don’t feel like sleeping. If so, try getting up and doing something boring like reading. Once you start feeling sleepy, get into bed again. But if you still can’t fall asleep, try doing something else boring.

Cultivating good sleep hygiene may just help to improve your sleep, but it does require a certain amount of discipline to adhere to, day in, and day out. By so doing, you train your body to expect sleep at a certain time, every night. In the long run, it’s so much better than popping sleeping aids into your mouth every night.