Night Time Habits for a Great Night's Sleep

Do you know how your nightly habits affect the quality of your sleep? The adoption of good nighttime habits plays a very significant role in assuring a peaceful and sound sleep. In contrast, poor habits at night before sleep eventually result in disturbing your sleep throughout the night. Not only is your sleep affected, but a number of your normal body functions also show disturbances in their normal performances. A reduced level of brain and mind activity and an increased level of stress is a common problem. Therefore, it is important to pay special attention to developing good nighttime habits for a great sleep. Here are some of the most effective and result-proven nightly habits that you should develop.

Keep your bedroom clean and tidy.

Having a clean and tidy bedroom is crucially important for a great sleep. Do you know why? It is because a clean and organized place always gives you peace of mind which is very important to have a good sleep. If your place is messed up, it would add unwanted stress to your mind and disrupt your sleep. Therefore, it is important to always keep your bedroom clean to feel good and stress-free. Make it a habit to clean your bedroom in the morning as well as in the evening so that you can have a peaceful sleep.

Make your bed comfortable.

Your bed must be comfortable if you want to enjoy the night's sleep. A bed that is messy and occupied with books, clothes, digital appliances, or other stuff won’t let you have a good sleep. Keep in mind that the bed is only for sleep and sex purpose. There should not be any books, digital appliances, piles of clothes, or any other “stuff” occupying that space. A bed that is clean and ready for sleep would relax your mind and keep your body comfortable throughout the night.

Have your dinner at least 3 hours before sleeping.

Many people prefer to have their dinner as the last thing before they sleep. However, this is the biggest mistake that they make and then complain about not having a peaceful sleep. When you eat and go straight to bed, your body gets busy digesting food instead of focusing on sleep. Therefore, make sure to have your dinner at least 3 hours before your sleep time. It will help your stomach properly digest your meal and let your brain focus on sleep when you go to bed.

Prepare a journal for the next day duties.

The thing that interrupts our sleep the most is the stress of the next day's responsibilities. To avoid this stress, writing a journal at night about the next day's responsibilities helps in managing the stress. In your journal, prioritize your tasks based on their importance and assign the time limits to accomplish each goal. In this way, you won’t have to worry about managing things the next day and would be able to sleep peacefully.

Turn off your screens 2 hours before sleep.

Another important nightly habit is to turn off your screens at least 2 hours before you sleep. Turning off your screens would help in relaxing your eyes and give your brain a signal that it’s the time for sleep. Also, try to keep your mobile phones aside at least an hour before you go to bed. If you are addicted to watching the mobile for hours before sleep, try to avoid it starting today. Spending lots  of time on the phone badly affects the quality of sleep.

Take a bath with lukewarm water.

At night, make it a habit to take a bath with slightly lukewarm water. It will help in relaxing your body muscles, along with giving you a refreshing and relaxing feeling. It will wipe away all your worries and prepare your body for the most comfortable and relaxed sleep.

Consider using an organic essential oil to calm your nervous system. 

The stress we experience during the day can take its toll at night while we sleep.  Disrupting our sleep cycles and preventing our body from being able to go deep enough into sleep to get restored.  Our brains can’t take out the garbage and we wake up feeling unrefreshed.  We can help our body lean into better sleep by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system with an essential oil.  I love Vibrant Blue Oils Parasympathetic oil.  You can find it here.  I just rub a drop behind each ear and then take 4-5 deep breaths in through my nose with the bottle right under my nose and the lid off.  You can use it at any time of the day or night to give your body a hug and relieve stress and anxiety.  It has no side effects and is easy to travel with as well.

Engage yourself in book reading.

Book reading is the best nighttime habit that promises better sleep. Not only a good sleep, but book reading also results in enhancing one’s knowledge with a lot of new information. It also improves one’s reading and understanding of other’s concepts. When you read a book at night, it relaxes your brain muscles and gives your mind good thoughts that take away stress.

Avoid taking caffeine and alcohol at night.

The intake of caffeine or alcohol won’t let you get to sleep on time. Caffeine, as well as alcohol, disrupt our regular sleep cycle and keeps our minds awake. This is the reason why drinking coffee at night won’t let you sleep for hours.

Drink a few tablespoons of organic tart cherry juice.

A few tablespoons of organic tart cherry juice at night helps with getting great sleep. The reason is that the juice contains certain healthy compounds such as melatonin that helps you fall asleep easily and peacefully. Moreover, tart cherry has anti-inflammatory properties can support reduced pain to all body parts, including the brain.  I work with a company called Purium and their organic tart cherry juice concentrate is excellent.  You can check it out here.

Fix and follow a specific time for going to bed.

It is also important to set a specific time for sleep and rigidly follow it every night. When you sleep at varying times at night, it disrupts your sleep. Your brain fails to understand what the exact time for sleep is, and thus, it affects your sleep quality. Setting a proper time is an important part of developing a good sleep schedule. 

· Turn off the lights when you go to bed.

Finally, make it your habit to lower the lights when it’s getting time for sleep. It will create a big difference in helping you get to sleep on time and enabling a sound circadian rhythm which is your bodies sleep/wake cycle.

Developing good nightly habits creates a significant difference in getting great sleep at night. Adopting several good night habits, as discussed above, helps in getting sound sleep. However, the inability to follow these habits would make you develop sleep issues that will ultimately affect your health.

Book a call with me if you’d like to explore getting support with your sleep.  Without it, you will always feel like you are pushing the ball up hill!