Sleep is important for good health. According to the Sleep Foundation, all adults should get at least 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep at night. When you don’t have good sleep, it can affect other things in your life, ranging from mental to physical health issues. Poor sleep can raise your cortisol levels, which is a hormone associated with stress. Luckily, there are ways to improve the quality of your sleep to ensure that you will always have a thriving and active day.
1. Sleep on Something Comfortable
Can you imagine sleeping on a mattress that is too hard? A bad mattress can cause neck and back pain. You may feel drowsy due to poor and uncomfortable sleep and constantly waking up. When you’re constantly waking up. You won’t be able to get REM sleep and, as a result, your sleep will never be peaceful. Taking a trip to your local mattress store can help solve the problem.
Improve the quality of your sleep with an extended trip to the mattress store to try out different mattresses. Some mattresses may be so hard it’s like slipping on a rock. However, if it’s too soft, you don’t get enough back support and it can feel like you’re sinking into it. As you test out different mattresses, you can find a perfect fit for you so that you can always get a good night’s sleep. In addition to the mattress, you can make it even more comfortable by buying a mattress pad for the top. However, your bed comfort doesn’t stop at your mattress.
Time to invest in high-quality bedding. Good bedding may have multiple thousand threads that are soft to the touch and feel good when you’re sleeping on top and in them. Get your sheets, your comforters, and nice blankets so that you’re always in a state of comfort and improve the quality of your sleep. According to experts, you should change your pillow every one to two years. They can collect dust mites and allergens that could make your sleep uncomfortable by making you sneeze or cough.
2. Pest Control
It would be hard to improve the quality of your sleep knowing that something is crawling on you at night. Unfortunately, that’s the situation several homeowners are dealing with, thanks to a bedbug infestation. According to a study by OneDesk, about 20% of US homes and hotels have an annual bed bug problem. You can begin to improve the quality of sleep by calling your local bed bug exterminator. While bed bugs aren’t a threat to your health, they can’t leave unsightly bites on your skin and cause you stress as you may not know if you’ll wake up with bites the next day.
Signs of these critters include shedded skin, fecal matter that looks like reddish-brown spots, blood spots, and bites on your skin that may resemble chicken pox or a rash.It is important to be on the lookout for bedbugs and other pests.
Having a rodent problem can stress any homeowner out. Imagine going into the kitchen late at night for a snack only to be greeted by a bunch of mice or rats overrunning your kitchen and contaminating your food supply. So if you don’t call a pest exterminator immediately, you may be overrun in your own home. If you make the effort to keep a clean home that you take pride in, it can cause you a lot of stress knowing that a rodent might be hiding behind the wall or in the basement and producing multiple little ones that will continue to multiply further without intervention.
3. Orthodontist
Are you suffering from sleep apnea that is affecting your ability to improve the quality of your sleep? If so, you can improve the quality of your sleep with a visit to the local orthodontist. According to the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, oral appliances are an effective way to treat sleep apnea and snoring. They fit over the teeth or mouth as a way to hold the jaw in place. CPAP machines help keep the airflow going as someone sleeps. Other appliances include the Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD) and Tongue-Stabilizing Device (TSD).
Issues such as a severe overbite, underbite, or crossbite can make it impossible for you to completely close your mouth when you sleep. As a result, you could easily get a dry mouth, which can lead to a dry throat and coughing. By going to your local orthodontist, you can get braces that can correct those alignment issues. For severe issues, metal braces are the best, and may take as long as two years to correct the issue. For less severe alignment concerns, you may be able to use Invisalign and see results in as little as six months, according to Healthline.
If you’re still unsure about what orthodontist to visit, go to your regular dentist first. Your regular dental practitioner can give you a referral for a relevant specialist.
4. Develop a Good Skin Care Routine
There’s nothing like good skin care to make yourself sleep peacefully. Imagine soaking in a deep bath with mineral salts. Mineral salt baths are known to not only relax your muscles but also detoxify your skin, which can make you sleep like a baby. Give yourself a detoxing facial mud mask. Improve the quality of your sleep by keeping your bathroom vanity stocked with high-quality and natural products to boost your skin. Remember, your skin is the largest organ, so taking care of it works wonders, especially for relaxation.
5. Be Mindful of Last Meal
The earlier you eat your last meal, the better it is for your sleep. Aim to eat your last meal no later than three hours before you hit the hay. You should also save your larger meal for lunch, as opposed to dinner. If you go to bed with a full stomach, you won’t have a chance to digest your food. That can result in indigestion and gas.
Improve the quality of sleep by being mindful of your drinking habits close to bedtime. It’s best to not have caffeine too close to your sleep time as it can keep you up longer than you would like. It’s no secret that alcohol can help you initially fall asleep by passing out, but it’s not the quality of sleep that puts you in a REM state. According to Insider, not getting REM sleep can cause anxiety and depression. When you drink alcohol, you’ll often need to relieve yourself in the bathroom more often, so you have to keep getting up from bed to do that.
6.Go to the Spa
A trip to the spa isn’t just to get facials and pedicures. A professional massage therapist can also relieve deep tension in your muscles that prevents restful sleep. Did you know a deep-tissue massage can release serotonin, a hormone in the brain that can make you feel sleepy? In other words, you won’t have to take serotonin or melatonin pills to help you sleep.
Plus, a trip to the spa with friends or on your own can easily alleviate your mood. When you’re in a good mood, it’s easier to relax and enjoy things. So sleep will come easy when your spa day ends.
7. Visit a Physical Therapist
Improve the quality of sleep by consulting with a pain management professional. You may have pain for many reasons such as an injury, surgery, illness, or a bad mattress. When you’re in chronic pain, it’s hard to sleep well. Search for a local physical therapist that can identify the source of your pain and show you methods to relieve it. You’ll learn stretches and other techniques to improve your flexibility and range of motion. They may put you on a treatment plan over a series of weeks and monitor your progress.
Yoga is another way to help with this situation. This ancient practice combines breathing, stretches, and other fluid movements that use body weight for resistance. According to Harvard Health, people who practice yoga enjoy better sleep and as much as an 85% reduction in stress.
8.Block Out Light
There’s a reason why people turn out their lights to go to sleep. Our bodies are naturally programmed to sleep at night, so unlike nocturnal creatures like rodents and cats, darkness will make us tired. However, as those summer days get longer, that means more hours of sun from an earlier hour. If you live in certain parts of the world like Alaska or Scandinavia, you may not see nighttime at all in the summer. If your window faces street lights, that can also impede your ability to sleep in a completely dark room. To ensure your room can properly block out sleep-destructive light, you should invest in home window tinting.
You can quickly improve the quality of your sleep by making sure your room is as dark as it is quiet. Don’t be surprised if you fall asleep within a couple of minutes.
Intrusive light can also come from your cellphones and televisions. By keeping those devices on at night, even in a dark room, you’re interrupting your sleep. If you want to watch a late-night movie, set the timer on your TV to turn it off by a certain time.
9. Prevent Noise
Even if your room is as dark as a bat cave, constant noise pollution can keep you up long past the time you have laid down to sleep. One way to combat this problem is with the right window coverings. Consider installing shutters to block out noise and darkness simultaneously. You can invest in automatic metal shutters you can pull down with the press of a button. Go for better aesthetics by installing manual wooden ones, like the colorful shutters in many Mediterranean homes.
Nature can also play a role in helping you sleep. If you have enough space in your landscape, start planting some trees. Professional landscape services can do this for you, as they know the best and safest spots on your land where trees can go. Trees naturally block out noise by absorbing or masking sound waves. According to the USDA, creating a 100-foot-wide with your trees can reduce noise by an average of five to eight decibels.
Consider the layout of your bedroom or overall house to improve the quality of your sleep. Is your bed near a street window? Maybe you should move it over to another wall. If that doesn’t help, you may consider switching bedrooms. If you have a backyard, it’s best to have a bedroom on that end instead of near the street traffic.
Don’t forget about the power of a fence. When you hire a local fence contractor to build a high fence, it can also create a sound barrier similar to how trees do. Of course, fences can also provide a barrier against intruders and stray animals, so they serve many purposes.
10. Paint Your Walls
Your interior painter can prove the power of color theory by giving your walls a certain color. Colors such as blue and purple are known to create a relaxing environment. So why not go ahead and revamp your master bedroom and bathroom? By adding a baby blue hue to the master bath, you can also increase your home’s potential resale value by an extra $5,000, according to Forbes. So, get ready for bed in a relaxing and spa-like bathroom that may one day put more money in your pocket.
Simply painting the walls in a new color may be enough to relax you while at home. According to statistics, more homeowners feel like staying home after having their interior walls painted. If you enjoy being in your home space, you’re already in good enough spirits that aid the relaxation needed to sleep.
As you can see, you have several ways to improve the quality of your sleep. Constantly not getting good sleep will be detrimental to your physical and mental health. This poor sleep can lead to anxiety, depression, heart problems, weight gain, and sluggishness. Avoid these life-altering issues and use this guide as a way to get the sleep your body needs.