In the rush of everyday life, with work, family, and other commitments pulling us in different directions, our health often takes a backseat. One crucial aspect that always tends to suffer is our sleep. While a compromise in sleep for a day or two may not seem alarming, prolonged sleep deprivation, where you consistently fail to get adequate quantity and quality sleep, can be detrimental and impair your overall functioning. Feeling constantly exhausted, short-tempered, and just not yourself…can make everything harder.
The good news is, there are ways to break this cycle! By pinpointing what’s messing with our sleep—whether it’s our habits or underlying issues—we can take steps to fix it and reclaim those precious ZZZs. Staying aware and acting smartly can bring results. Getting enough rest makes everything else in life better. Let’s find out what you need to sleep well again!
Negative Outcomes Linked With Sleep Deprivation
- Sleep deprivation can significantly increase the risk of accidents, including those caused by drowsy driving due to reduced alertness and impaired reaction times.
- Sleep deprivation weakens the immune system, making you more susceptible to illnesses, and an increased risk of heart disease due to elevated stress levels.
- Difficulty concentrating and reduced cognitive performance are common effects of sleep deprivation.
- Sleep deprivation can decrease your productivity, and can affect your work or daily activities, as it becomes harder to complete tasks efficiently.
- Sleep deprivation disrupts hormones related to hunger and appetite, leading to increased food cravings, particularly for high-calorie, sugary, and fatty foods. This can result in weight gain.
- Sleep-deprived individuals are more likely to experience mood swings, irritability, and heightened stress levels.
- Sleep deprivation impairs memory consolidation, making it harder to remember information and learn new things.
When and why world sleep day is celebrated?
World Sleep Day occurs annually on the Friday preceding the Spring Vernal Equinox, typically falling around March 20th. This year, in 2024, it will take place on March 15th. Organized by the World Sleep Society, the event was established to accomplish several key objectives: to raise awareness about the significance of sleep for overall health and well-being, to educate individuals on healthy sleep practices and the consequences of sleep disorders, and to advocate for improved support and resources to address sleep-related issues globally.
Understanding Body’s Internal Clock “The Circadian Rhythm”
Circadian rhythm, often referred to as the body’s internal clock is a complex and finely-tuned biological system that orchestrates a wide range of physiological, mental, and behavioral processes over a 24-hour cycle. This internal clock is primarily influenced by external cues, the most powerful of which is the natural light-dark cycle of day and night.
Sleep-Wake Cycle – One of the most prominent aspects of circadian rhythm is its control over our sleep-wake patterns. As evening approaches and natural light diminishes, the body starts producing melatonin, a hormone that signals to the body that it’s time to wind down and prepare for sleep. Conversely, as morning dawns and light levels rise, melatonin production decreases, making us feel more alert and awake.
Core Body Temperature – Circadian rhythm also influences our core body temperature. Typically, body temperature drops slightly in the evening, contributing to the feeling of drowsiness and promoting sleep. In the morning, core body temperature starts to rise, helping us become more awake and alert.
Hormone Production – The circadian clock regulates the release of various hormones, including cortisol (the stress hormone) and growth hormone. Cortisol levels tend to be highest in the morning, helping us wake up and become active, while growth hormone production peaks during deep sleep, aiding in tissue repair and growth.
Maintaining a stable and naturally aligned circadian rhythm is crucial for overall health and well-being, disruptions to this internal clock are often caused by irregular sleep patterns.
Here are Some Proven Natural Tips to Sleep Better at Night
1. Sticking to a Sleep Schedule
Similar to the fixed schedule we follow for our daily activities, like work and meals, it’s essential to prioritize a consistent sleep schedule for a healthier life. While we often wake up early to handle household chores, prepare meals, send our kids to school, and head to the office, our bedtime routine tends to fluctuate.
However, one key to maintaining good health is going to bed at the same time each night and ensuring a minimum of 8 hours of quality sleep. Try setting a regular bedtime and wake-up time every day, just as you would set an alarm for the morning; consider setting one for bedtime as well. This practice can help establish a healthy sleep schedule.
2. Effective Relaxation Techniques for Improved Sleep
The stress experienced during the day can often translate into sleepless nights, with worries and anxieties of today and tomorrow keeping you awake or bringing poor sleep quality.
To combat the pertaining issue, consider incorporating relaxation techniques to quiet your mind, into your daily routine. Engaging in deep breathing exercises and dedicating just 10 minutes to meditation before bedtime can significantly contribute to deeper and faster sleep.
It’s essential to recognize that many problems lack instant solutions and require time for resolution. Continuously fretting over circumstances beyond your control can adversely affect both the quality of your sleep and your sleep onset latency, which measures how quickly you fall asleep after turning off the lights. Relaxation techniques can reduce stress symptoms, help you feel calm, make you feel happier and you can enjoy a night of better quality sleep.
3. A warm bath or shower
A warm bath before bedtime can relieve muscles, ease tension, help reduce stress, lower inflammation, soothe skin, and elevate your overall mood. Taking a warm bath or shower makes your body relaxed after a long day and improves sleep onset latency. Timing matters when it comes to using warm water as a sleep aid, taking the warm water shower 1 to 2 hours before sleep helps your body relax, making it easier to transition into sleep.
A warm shower or bath as a pre-sleep routine helps lower your body’s core temperature, a drop in body temperature is linked with circadian rhythm (temperature drop is a natural signal to the body that it’s time to sleep).
4. Reducing alcohol intake
Alcohol consumption results in increased wakefulness during the night, reduced sleep efficiency, and a heightened risk of sleep disturbances. Alcohol has sedative effects, initially, it can aid your sleep but regular drinking for a prolonged period will have a negative effect on your sleep quality.
While some individuals may mistakenly believe that alcohol aids in sleep, it can actually be considered the culprit behind poor sleep, as it has a negative effect on Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. Therefore, reducing alcohol intake or avoiding it altogether, especially in the hours leading up to bedtime, can be a beneficial strategy to promote better sleep.
What is REM sleep?
REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, which is a stage of your sleep cycle when you’re in a deep sleep and most dreams occur in this phase only. During REM sleep a person’s eyes move rapidly behind closed eyelids, brain activity increases, breathing becomes faster and irregular, and heart rate and blood pressure speed up.
Brain waves during REM sleep appear very similar to brain waves during wakefulness, and due to this increased brain activity only we see intense dreams. REM sleep is important in your sleep cycle because it promotes brain cell repair and also stimulates the areas of the brain that help in dreaming, learning, memory, and emotional processing.
Your sleep at night usually goes through cycles of non-REM (NREM) and REM sleep, and each cycle lasts about 90 minutes. REM sleep becomes deeper and longer in the later cycles, making it a key part of getting a good night’s rest.
5. Stay away from caffeine
Caffeine imposes adverse consequences on nocturnal sleep, as it is a stimulant that helps people stay awake, be more alert, and counteract sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant that helps keep you awake and alert, which can interfere with the process of initiating sleep and make you feel more active and energetic for an extended period.
Drinking caffeine in any form like energy drinks, coffee, or pills during a bedtime or close to bedtime routine will disrupt your sleep cycle, as caffeine has certain chemicals that inhibit or block the sleep-promoting receptors in the central nervous system called adenosine receptors.
Nocturnal sleep refers to the sleep that occurs during the nighttime, which is the typical sleep period for most people. It is the natural sleep cycle that follows the body’s circadian rhythm, with sleep generally starting in the evening and continuing through the night until waking up in the morning. Nocturnal sleep is essential for overall health and well-being as it allows the body to rest, recover, and perform various vital functions during the night.
6. An environment free of distractions
To get a night of quality sleep you must remove all the distractions from your sleeping zone. Achieving quality sleep requires a sleep environment that is free of distractions and conducive to rest. Leaking light from the windows, uncomfortable pillows, old mattresses, heavy blankets, outside world noise, and uneven room temperature are all the factors that are the real culprits for sleep disruption and deprivation.
Optimizing your bedroom for stress-free long sleep starts with a quiet, dark, and cool bedroom. Small makeovers like darkening blinds, sound-treated walls, air conditioners, warm lighting, comfort mattresses, and cozy quilts will all help to improve your sleep quality. With these adjustments, you can create a distraction-free sleep haven that promotes restorative rest.
7. Turn off all devices
Electronic devices, like TVs, smartphones, music systems, headphones, smartwatches, and laptops are part of our everyday regime, and continuous attachment to them can interfere with our sleep quality. Finishing the movie or texting on social media during nighttime can gulp your important sleeping hours and disturb your circadian cycle. Stop using electronic devices 30 minutes before bed, try powering them down or putting them on do-not-disturb mode.
Notification sounds followed by vibrations and colorful blinking lights can be disturbing, attention-grabbing, and cause unwanted awakenings. By disconnecting from electronic devices before sleep, you can foster a tranquil environment conducive to better sleep and ensure a more restful night.
8. Make happiness a habit
Happiness isn’t just an emotion; happiness is a rhythm of our life, start working on it if you want a perfect healthy life. Happiness is associated with good sleep and fewer sleep problems like insomnia or sleep apnea. Everyday worries, social anxiety, and mental stress make sleep impossible, to counter this start with a positive approach and change your perception to look into problems.
Life renovation is possible, always embrace optimism and believe in your abilities to boost your self-confidence. Just a change in your mindset can help anxiety reduction and promote relaxation, ultimately contributing to improved sleep.
9. Limit daytime naps
Longer daytime naps can interfere with nighttime sleep, disturb your circadian clock and you may feel more alert or less tired when it’s time for nighttime sleep. Long daytime naps that are more than one hour can put you in deep sleep, upon waking individual may feel sluggish and dull also known as sleep inertia.
However, brief daytime naps that range from 20 to 30 minutes are a great way to sneak a little rest time or boost brain performance.
What is Sleep inertia?
Sleep inertia is that groggy feeling you experience when you’re somewhere in between sleep and wakefulness, usually right after waking up in the morning. It’s like a transition phase where your cognitive functioning is lower, you feel sluggish, and it’s hard to focus. While a bit of sleep inertia is normal, feeling excessively tired could be a sign of a restless night, not getting enough sleep, or taking long naps during the day.
10. Use melatonin supplements
Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the pineal gland in our brain, particularly when it’s dark outside. This hormone serves as a signal to our body that it’s time to sleep and plays a crucial role in regulating our sleep-wake cycles. Taking supplements with melatonin as a prime ingredient can promote total sleep time, especially when sleep is disrupted due to various lifestyle factors such as long days, jet lag, strenuous workouts, night shifts, and other similar reasons. Melatonin helps by aiding relaxation, easing stress, and promoting better sleep.
Natural alternatives for better sleep: Chamomile tea is caffeine-free and is considered one of the most effective herbal teas available to relax the body and induce sleep. Valerian root tea prepared from the root of the valerian plant has mild sedative properties and can be used as a sleep aid and reduce anxiety. While these natural herbs don’t contain melatonin, they can still be a helpful natural remedy for individuals looking to unwind and prepare for a restful night’s sleep.
11. Follow a de-stress routine
Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone and cortisol levels may increase approximately 9 times in stressful periods, high cortisol levels later in the day or near bedtime can trigger insomnia, as elevated levels of cortisol can increase alertness and lead to poor sleep. Follow a de-stress routine to stabilize your stress hormones like meditation, deep breathing, visualization, reading, or listening to soft music.
Relaxation and stress management helps in slower heart rate, slower breathing, and lower blood pressure, helping you get better sleep.
12. Go out in the sunlight during the day
Vitamin D has a role in sleep regulation, vitamin D deficiency can increase the risk of sleep disorders like shorter sleep duration, nocturnal awakenings, and insomnia. The body follows its biological clock and calibrates sleep-wake pattern accordingly, exposure to light or sun means to be awake and dimming light or dark time means to rest.
How vitamin D and sleep are interconnected?
When our skin is exposed to sunlight, it triggers the production of vitamin D. This vitamin, in turn, plays a role in regulating sleep-related hormones and processes. However, when there’s a deficiency in vitamin D, it can disrupt the circadian rhythm. If you are having limited exposure to sunlight your circadian rhythm may function disorderly, making you struggle to sleep.
While sunlight is the most natural source of vitamin D, you can also get it from dietary sources such as fatty fish (like salmon and mackerel), fortified foods (like milk and breakfast cereals), and supplements. If you live in an area with limited sunlight or are unable to get enough sun exposure, you may consider vitamin D supplements to ensure you meet your daily requirements.
13. Don't eat a heavy meal late in the day
Heavy dinners need time for absorption and digestion, you may feel drowsy after a heavy meal but many problems like acid reflux, indigestion, and spiked blood sugar can bring discomfort, restless turning, and midnight awakening. Allow plenty of time for your body to digest the last food you ate so it won’t disrupt your sleep.
Excess calories from late-night eating are more likely to be stored as fat rather than burned as energy as there is less activity in later hours or after dinner, potentially contributing to weight gain. Heavy meals in dinner for the long term can lead to obesity, which is known to be associated with sleep disturbances, including insomnia.
To enhance your sleep quality, it’s advisable to establish a routine of consuming lighter meals in the evening and providing your body with ample time for digestion before bedtime. Aim to complete your dinner before 8 p.m. if your bedtime is around 10 p.m. This allows for a minimum of 2 hours for the digestion process before you go to sleep.
14. Make changes in our diet
Dietary adjustments, changes, and regulations could potentially be useful in the management of sleep disorders. Eating spicy foods right before bed can cause indigestion and discomfort, dairy items produce excess mucus and act as an obstruction to upper airways resulting in apnea, and high-protein high-fat meats can disrupt sleep because they take a long time to break down, which is a problem at bedtime since your digestion slows by up to 50 percent when you sleep.
Include herbs such as peppermint, chamomile, turmeric, parsley, sage, and basil in your diet as they have therapeutic properties that help with sleep promotion.
15. Get regular exercise
To improve the quality and quantity of your sleep, regular exercise followed by a strict sleeping routine can bring great success for your overall health. Regular exercise is energy-depriving, and enhances the sleep demand, resulting in sleep faster. Exercise helps in your weight management, muscle building, and burning fat making your body overall healthy, good sleep is like the cherry on top of the cake. Sleep helps in the growth of cells and the repair of damaged cells resulting in overall muscle growth.
It’s best to avoid vigorous exercise close to bedtime, as it may have a stimulating effect. Aim to finish exercising at least a few hours before your bedtime to allow your body to wind down and prepare for sleep.
16. Avoid smoking completely
Smoking can raise many health risks and is associated with insomnia too, nicotine from smoking or chewing tobacco can produce a sense of relaxation, pleasure, and energy but it acts just like a superficial mask to relieve you from exhaustion. Nicotine is a powerful stimulant found in tobacco products. It stimulates the release of adrenaline and other stress hormones, which can increase alertness and heart rate.
When you smoke, especially in the evening or close to bedtime, these stimulant effects can interfere with your ability to fall asleep. Long-term consumption of nicotine increases insomnia severity, shorter sleep durations, and even sleep apnea.
17. To-do list
Before going to bed, many people’s minds tend to race with thoughts about tasks and responsibilities for the next day. This mental clutter can make it challenging to relax and fall asleep. By jotting down a to-do list, you bring clarity to your thoughts. You no longer need to rely on your memory to keep track of everything you need to do, which can help you relax without worrying about forgetting important tasks. Writing down your tasks offloads them from your mind onto paper or a digital device. This process can be therapeutic because it symbolizes a commitment to addressing those tasks.
Racing thoughts, especially related to unfinished tasks or upcoming responsibilities, can trigger the release of stress hormones like cortisol. These hormones can make it difficult to relax and fall asleep. Managing stress through task organization can help regulate stress hormones, release built-up tension, and contribute to a more peaceful mind, ultimately leading to better sleep.
18. Drug-Free Sleep
Chronic sleep problems can be a frustrating feeling, as much you try you are not able to sleep at night. The only way possible to find your lost sleep is through prescription medicines called sleeping pills. However, these pills can lead to dependence and may worsen your sleeping disorder if utilized for a prolonged time.
It’s true that chronic insomnia is unlikely to go away without treatment but we must come up with strategies to stop drug reliance and always try to find the solutions that naturally improve our insomnia symptoms. Practicing meditation, regular exercising, inner happiness, communication with loved ones, hobby classes, a stress-free environment, etc. can help with symptoms and sleep disorders.
Takeaway
“Quality sleep is not a luxury; it’s a necessity”
Sleep affects almost every part of your body, to enjoy a long and healthy life quality sleep is essential. Learn the secrets to good sleep, above noted tips will help you sleep better and make you more energetic and productive during your waking hours.
