5 Ways to Improve Your Sleep

Getting sufficient sleep is more important than you probably realised, with on-going research proving that it is responsible for more than just energy. Yet, it has been reported that nearly a third of the UK population suffer with insomnia. Are you missing a trick when it comes to sleeping, it might not be as easy as just putting your head on a pillow?

It’s always great to reinforce things we feel strongly about and if that includes coffee, chocolate or sleeping then great! Next time you think of cutting into your sleep or nap time, bear the following research in mind. So before we breakdown some useful tactics to not only get more sleep but improve the overall quality let’s see why it is vital that we get good sleep. So what can improved sleep do for our health?

• Regulates Hormones
• Improve Physical Health
• Increase Energy
• Improve Moods
• Sharpen Attention
• Better Memory
• Helps Build Muscle
• Improves your sex life
• Can help maintain a healthy weight

The above are just some of the amazing benefits of sleep and each of them are intertwined as healthy hormones affects our mental and physical health which will subsequently change our physical performance, output, memory and attention. So all of the fantastic advantages of a healthy sleeping pattern have been highlighted but that doesn’t seclude the fact that many people struggle to get enough of it. How can we ensure that we get enough quality sleep on a daily basis?

Get Enough Exercise in the Day

It has been proven that exercising in the day can help promote healthy sleep. It is also known to help us reach a deep sleep too; so vigorous exercise could be the key to you getting enough downtime. Although intense exercise would be great, any exercise could help; ten minutes of walking a day may be the answer. It may take a few months of regular exercise before these benefits kick in. There’s a number of reasons this solution could work, it lowers anxiety, stress and also has body temperature affects that could ensure we get to sleep as our temperature lowers during nighttime. Start introducing regular exercise into your daily regime and enjoy the undisturbed sleep that’s synonymous with it. If you're looking for a fitness tracker to help you on your journey, you can find great FitBit offers from Currys, which monitor your steps throughout the day - aiming for 10,000 is a great feat on a weekday!

Make Your Bedroom Relaxing

Make your bedroom, your bedroom! It can be that simple, a bedroom that doubles up as an office or somewhere you spend most of the day doesn’t work well. That’s because you associate it with work or gaming, try to make your bedroom the place you go to relax or sleep. How can you do this? Well, add to the theme, enjoy lights that can be dimmed and have nothing but the most comfortable linen and sheets. It’s not hard to find comfortable, sleek and light bed sheets, you can use our Soak & Sleep voucher codes to get money off your next bedding order. This could make all the difference, and a silk or bamboo could be the best choice with them acting as cool sheets sure to keep your temperature down.

Stay Off Your Phone prior to Bed

Phones and tablets have become a part of our daily life and with all the use they have, they sometimes distract us and intervene with what we should be doing. How often have you tried to watch one YouTube video and ended up watching two cat videos, three documentaries and a whole Netflix Series. But it’s not just about capturing your imagination during the night, the actual light from these screens physically change our hormones and then prevent us from getting into a REM sleep. A mobile phone, tablet or laptop have blue lights on the screen which replicate the effects of the sun, this will bring up our cortisol levels and interrupt our snooze. Even if you do sleep after looking through your phone, you won’t be enjoy quality sleep. Himalayan Salt Lamps are known to neutralise electric frequencies and act as though they make your room seem more like one near a beach. This can help us sleep, so use Amazon for 35% off your next lamp.

Get a Sleeping Pattern

Our sleeping cycle is integral, it can be the difference. How often has that weekend lie-in thrown you off for when you go back to work? It could be as simple as going to bed at the same time and getting up around the same time. The best time to get to sleep is believed to be around 10pm, so start to wind down, dim the lights and put the phone down around 9pm. Read some fictional books and try to eliminate the day’s worries, you will soon be sleeping like a baby.

What You Eat & Drink

Drinking coffee within six hours of going to sleep could keep you awake, although different people have different caffeine sensitivities, to be safe try to keep the coffees at the start of the day. You should also consume enough water to ensure you hydrated; this will encourage a healthy sleep too. Also leave heavy meals a few hours to digest, the last thing you want is it working overtime right before bed, it could make you rather uncomfortable.

So there you have it, there’s plenty of ways to improve your sleep and a wealth of reasons that it could contribute to a healthy lifestyle. Address your hormone issues, improve performance in the gym or just enjoy an overall healthier life with better sleep. These tips could help you combat insomnia, so start incorporating these into your life. 

 By Daniel Treasure, Writer for My Favourite Voucher Codes,  20th April.