4 Proven Tips to Improve Sleep Quality

Sleep is one of those things we all take for granted, but when we do not get enough, it affects everything. According to the charity Mental Health UK, up to 66% of adolescents say their mental health is impacted negatively by poor-quality sleep. In the UK, 1 in 5 people do not get the amount of sleep they should. Adults should be getting between 7-9 hours a night of sleep.

However, people often boast about surviving on less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Wearing sleep deprivation as a badge of honour. According to the Sleep Foundation, long term sleep deprivation can increase your risk of having a heart attack, a stroke or getting high blood pressure. It has also been linked to diabetes and obesity. You may already be aware of some changes you need to make to improve your sleep. In this blog, I am going to give you 4 easy tips to help you improve the quality of your sleep that you may not have thought of.

Establish a Consistent Routine

Your body has its internal clock that helps it run efficiently, heal and repair. Each organ in your body also has its own internal clock. For example, your digestive system (this includes the stomach and intestines that helps you to digest your food), is active during the day. When you sleep, it repairs and “cleans house” and is ready to begin again the next day.

Without this downtime, chemicals and molecules that are left in your intestines, instead of being cleared away, can affect your gut microbiome (millions of microorganisms that live in your digestive system). This can affect your immune system (how your body fights germs and cancer cells) and other systems in your body. 

Therefore, it is important to have a routine with the same bedtime and wake up time every day. This helps your body plan ahead and know when the down time is going to happen, so it can do the essential job of resetting and clearing unwanted chemicals from your body. Eventually, you will find that you will fall asleep faster and naturally wake up before your alarm in the morning when your body learns your new routine. 

Create the Perfect Sleep Environment

This is not about having expensive silk sheets and pyjamas. This is about creating a space that makes falling asleep and staying asleep easier. Therefore, the darker your room, the better. Personally, I cannot have my room as dark as I would like, as my 5-year-old often comes through at night and does not like the dark. Therefore, I have a night light that uses red light near the door. It gives enough light that my daughter can come through easily but not too much that it affects either mine or my husband’s sleep.

Also, if my room is full of clutter, I cannot sleep. Try to keep your room as a tidy and organised space. It helps your mind to focus on sleep rather than all the things you need to tidy up. Ensure that your clothing and bedding is aimed at keeping you at the right temperature through the night. You don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night because you are too cold or too hot. I have often read that your room should be at around 18 degrees. As someone who is always cold, there is NO WAY this would work for me. Therefore, my room, bedding and clothing is focussed on keeping me warm and snug. 

Manage your screen/light exposure

Most nights after 7 pm I have my blue light glasses on. I also use this during the day when I am on my computer or phone for prolonged periods of time. The ones I have were £15 off Amazon for a set of three (always good to have them at various places around the house). I have noticed a significant difference in how quickly I fall asleep since using these glasses (and the difficulties when I don’t use them!).

Due to a busy household and life, I cannot always stop all screen time 2-3 hours before bed, so the glasses help if I need to be on a screen during this time. I have also switched on the settings on my phone and other devices that shift the display colours to a warmer tone after a certain time. This is supposed to help decrease the amount of blue light you are exposed to and, therefore, increase the quality of your sleep. 

Unwind by Journaling and Planning

Often, by the time I get into bed to sleep, there is a moment of silence for my brain to then go through everything I did wrong, things I need to do and anything else that can cause me stress. Therefore, I can end up tossing and turning for an hour before I go to bed (while my husband falls asleep before his head even hits the pillow!). Two things that completely stopped this for me were journalling and planning the next day before going up to bed. Journalling helped because I was able to get out any stress, thoughts and negative feelings and put it on paper.

This helps to put it in perspective and get it out of my system. This means that when my head hits the pillow, there is nothing more to think about and prevent me from falling asleep quickly. Planning the next day helps by putting action behind the thoughts so you are not ruminating on the same thing repeatedly without any way to change the situation.

Often, you have a list of things you need to do, and you are going through your list when you should be sleeping. By planning the next day or beyond before you go to bed, you are putting a plan in place of when and how you are going to tackle the issues. This helps your brain begin to rest as it knows there is a plan in place, and it doesn’t need to think about it again until tomorrow. 

References for better Sleep Quality

• Mental Health UK (for sleep and mental health insights)
• Sleep Foundation (for sleep deprivation risks and tips)

Conclusion

Just like you cannot live very long without food or water, you also need good-quality sleep to survive. By following the above tips, you can fall asleep faster, get better quality sleep and wake up feeling refreshed. If you want help with your sleep or any other well-being goal, fill in the Contact Us form and arrange a discovery call. 

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