On average, you’ll spend approximately 26 years asleep. That’s over 9,000 days or almost 230,000 hours. It’s an essential part of your life and is vital to your overall health—particularly your brain health. We’ve talked about how important sleep is to the body and brain in a previous article, you can read more about that, here.
Your body needs an average of seven to ten hours of sleep a night. However, busy lifestyles, stress, and even changes in sleep patterns as you age can chip away at how much sleep you end up getting. Because sleep is such a vital part of your existence, developing healthy sleep habits is one thing you can do to take better care of your body and brain.
1: Set a sleep schedule
Of all the things you can do in order to ensure you get healthy sleep, going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is the most important. One common misconception is that you can catch up sleep. Unfortunately, studies show that it takes up to four days to recover from one hour of lost sleep. But even then, the math gets tricky and one marathon session isn’t actually enough to restore your brain functionality.
When you sleep in on the weekends, what you’re typically doing is resetting your circadian rhythm—not actually catching up on sleep. Think of it like perpetual jetlag. You may get enough hours of sleep over the weekend, but if you’re fighting your body’s natural sleep cycles, you’re going to feel out of it all week. In order to combat that fatigue, it’s necessary to adjust your natural rhythms to fit your work schedule.
First, you want to determine what time you need to wake up. Sleep cycles are typically ninety minutes long, and you don’t want to wake up in the middle of that cycle. Counting backwards from your wake time for at least five sleep cycles gives you the ideal time when you should fall asleep.
Finding the right sleep schedule can take some adjustments. You may need six or even seven sleep cycles to function at your best. The most important thing is to aim for falling asleep and waking up at the same time every day––even on the weekends. Having a consistent sleep schedule is vital to overall sleep health.
2: Exercise daily
It may seem counterintuitive, but staying active throughout the day is a fantastic way to keep your sleep on track. Being active for 30 minutes a day improves sleep quality for myriad reasons. It releases endorphins and lowers cortisol levels in your brain, which work to keep your brain awake. It also stabilizes your sleep-wake cycle so you can not only fall asleep at consistent times but fall into a deeper, higher quality sleep as well.
The level of exercise doesn’t have to be intense in order to achieve these benefits either. Going for a walk will give you the same sleep boost as doing intense cardio or weight-training. Ideally, you want to be done with any exercise at least an hour before bed, and if you’re engaging in a particularly intense workout session, you want to be done at least two hours before it’s time to wind down for sleep.
To get an extra bonus, exercising outdoors gives you natural exposure to sunlight, which helps regulate your internal circadian rhythm and releases serotonin. Serotonin works to keep your mood elevated but it also helps keep cortisol down, and that means when it’s time for bed, you can fall asleep faster and sleep deeper.
3: Be aware of lighting
Your circadian rhythm largely drives your sleep-wake cycle. And this rhythm is directly affected by light, specifically blue light. Sunlight is made up of an array of light, and this includes blue rays.
When the sun rises, these blue rays are the strongest. That’s why getting sunlight right when you wake up can help you feel invigorated and energized. As the sun sets, blue rays get weaker, allowing your brain to release melatonin and prepare for sleep.
Unfortunately, many of the devices in modern day life, such as televisions, computers, and phones, also have blue light in them. Using blue light glasses at night or avoiding screens for at least one hour before going to bed can help reduce the effect blue light has on your brain and help you fall asleep.
4: Eat healthy food
Food plays a crucial role in how well you sleep. In fact, certain foods can actually disrupt your circadian rhythm and change your hormonal levels to the point of inducing insomnia. Which makes maintaining a balanced diet a vital component to getting a good night’s sleep.
A diet consisting of high fiber and low sugar helps you fall asleep faster and can increase the amount of deep, slow-wave sleep you get each night. Foods rich in magnesium, tryptophan, and vitamin B can boost and balance melatonin levels, which is an important neurochemical that helps you fall asleep. Eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids can increase slow-wave and REM sleep significantly, allowing you to sleep longer and wake up less.
Another important aspect of healthy eating is your overall gut health. Recent studies are beginning to unlock the powerful correlation between healthy gut microbiota and quality sleep. Research is finding that there is a clear microbiome-gut-brain axis. A study out of Japan found that when bacteria is depleted in the gut, it actually impacts the creation of serotonin — a key neurochemical for quality sleep. This means your gut microbiota can directly effect neurochemical production and communication in your brain.
But a healthy diet goes beyond what you eat. You also have to know what to avoid. Sugar and caffeine not only keep you awake, but can actually wake you up throughout the night as well. And because they stay in your system for several hours, you want to avoid them at least eight hours before going to bed. Spicy foods can lead to heartburn or acid reflux, so minimizing those before bed will also lead to better quality sleep. Foods high in satured fats and eating a diet high in carbohydrates can disrupt your sleep-wake cycles, reduce your deep-wave sleep, and decrease the amount of REM sleep.
5: Create a sleep-friendly environment
There are a few elements to pay attention to when it comes to setting up your ideal sleep environment. In general, you get your best sleep in rooms that are cool, dark, quiet, and have minimal clutter. Whenever possible, reduce the temperature between 65 and 71 degrees Fahrenheit, going as cool as you can without sacrificing comfort. If you live near bright street lights, getting blackout curtains or using a sleep mask can help keep the light out. Earbuds or earplugs designed for sleep can help minimize noise.
It may sound strange that clutter interferes with your sleep, but your brain has a difficult time focusing when surrounded with a lot of stimuli and it sees clutter as unfinished tasks. Even though you’re in the dark, it knows it’s there, which leads to anxiety and stress. This can make unwinding into the relaxed state necessary for quality sleep very difficult. Making an effort to keep your sleep environment clutter-free can make a drastic impact on how you sleep. You’ll also want to use your bed and bedroom only for sleep. Bringing work and other daytime activities can have the same effect as clutter and make it difficult to relax when you try to go to sleep.
Ideally, you want to minimize screen time by avoiding watching television in bed and staying off devices at least an hour before you go to sleep. Most modern electronics such as cell phones, tablets, laptops, and televisions emit blue light—which we talked about earlier. You can use blue-blocking glasses at night to filter that wavelength out and help your brain fall asleep faster.
Finally, a healthy sleep environment extends to making sure you have a comfortable and supportive mattress, pillows, and bedding that suits your body temperature as you sleep. Whether you prefer a firm or soft mattress won’t affect your sleep as long as you take into account your body weight and what position you sleep in to find your ideal set up.
6: Meditate
Meditation has significant health benefits, one of which is healthier sleep. Studies in biopsychology—the study of behavior on the brain—has shown that meditation can reduce insomnia by reducing and managing extreme emotions like anger, anxiety, stress, and depression.
There are many different types of meditation but one technique that proves particularly effective when it comes to sleep is mindfulness meditation. It involves concentrating on your breathing while focusing entirely on the present moment. Anytime your thoughts wander, simply bring them back to the moment. Practicing mindfulness meditation for twenty minutes a day induces the relaxation response, which is a physiological shift away from stress and towards relaxation.
Once you’ve relaxed your body and mind, it’s easier to fall asleep, experience deeper sleep, and stay asleep longer. Practicing meditation during the day can help keep your sleep cycle on track by reducing fatigue and lowering stress levels. Meditating for ten minutes is equivalent to roughly forty minutes of sleep, so meditating instead of napping can give you the energy boost you need without disrupting your sleep-wake cycle.
7: Know when to nap
That’s not to say naps are a terrible thing. In fact, they can be a secret weapon for daytime productivity. But there’s a trick to napping without disrupting your sleep-wake cycle.
First, you want to aim for naps that are ten to twenty minutes long. You never want to go over thirty minutes, if you can help it. Sleep cycles are typically an average of ninety minutes long, but it takes approximately 30 minutes to fall into deep sleep. Waking up during deep sleep will make you feel groggy and tired, taking away the benefits of napping.
If you find that short naps aren’t easy or beneficial, you can take longer naps. But you’ll need to ensure you go through the entire ninety minute sleep cycle to feel the energy boost. Regardless of whether you take a short or longer nap, you never want to sleep past 3pm so that you don’t disrupt your natural sleep rhythms.
A trick you can employ to help you wake up within thirty minutes is to drink a small cup of coffee right before you start napping. The caffeine takes roughly twenty to thirty minutes to begin working by blocking the adenosine receptors—the neurochemical that causes drowsiness. By blocking these receptors, your brain begins to wake up and prevents you from falling into deeper stages of sleep.
8: Read a Book
One habit that can help develop healthy sleep and reduce screen time before bed is reading a book. In 2009, University of Sussex researchers found that reading a book for at least six minutes before bed lowered stress levels by 68%.
Reading fiction has been found to be as relaxing as meditation. It distracts you from your stresses and worries, allowing you to fall into different thought patterns. You should focus on reading fiction versus nonfiction, because if you’re actively trying to learn, your brain will stay focused and alert instead of relaxed. However, you should try to stay away from emotionally charged plots and fast-paced action stories that might be more exciting than calming.
You also want to keep in mind how you’re reading. A physical book is ideal but you want to make sure you’re using low level yellow lights versus bright white lights. Many e-readers are designed to have low levels of blue light, but tablets or phone don’t have that same design. If you read on your phone or another blue light emitting device, be sure to wear blue-blocker glasses.
Conclusion
Making small changes to your daily routines can make a world of difference when it comes to healthy sleep. If you implement healthy sleep habits and still find yourself struggling, we always recommend seeing a medical professional. Getting quality sleep is one of the most important facets to ensuring your body and mind perform at optimal levels, unlocking your limitless potential.
