We assume that our sleep routine begins when we put our head on the pillow. It’s a fair assumption, but in fact, how we behave throughout the day impacts how we sleep at night.
If that sounds daunting, fear not! Implementing a healthy sleep routine is within your reach. Here are some steps to improve your slumber.
Don’t be intimidated: implement these steps at your own pace and level. For instance, if you drink 6 coffees a day, you’re not expected to cut down to zero on the first day.
You might be surprised at how long caffeine stays in your system. Some recommend cutting it out entirely at least 12 hours before going to sleep. Caffeine blocks adenosine, a sleep-inducing chemical that builds up during the day and ultimately helps you sleep. As you’ve probably noticed, this quality in caffeine is probably what makes it pretty popular in the morning!
However, caffeine remains in your system for hours after consumption. It can take anywhere from 2 to 12 hours for it to completely leave your system. A gap of 8 hours is recommended by many experts (including the Sleep Foundation). So, if you go to bed at 11, you might want to have your last coffee before 3pm.
It’s also worth noting that caffeine can be found not just in coffee, but in tea and some soft drinks and energy drinks, too.
Using one’s phone before bed (and in some cases in bed!) has become increasingly popular in recent years. One survey found that “more than 98% of participants own smartphones of which 92.4% use it at bedtime”.
Unsurprisingly, this has a detrimental effect on sleep. One of many studies on this found that “the more people use social media around their sleep and wake times, the more they may struggle with sleep”.
This shouldn’t be surprising: Shining a light in one’s eyes with (depending on the social media) conflict or FOMO can’t be good for one’s relaxation. But setting aside whether or not the content is harmful, the artificial light alone poses a problem. Your body produces melatonin naturally, which eventually leads to sleepiness. And artificial (or “blue”) light reduces melatonin production.
Ideally, you should not use a smartphone or tablet for an hour before sleep. And you should try not to have them (or a TV) in the bedroom.
Try to engage in other relaxing activities before bed, like reading, meditation or stretches. If you’re not a big bookworm, consider lighter reading, like magazines.
Drinking alcohol can cause drowsiness, as you’ve probably witnessed. This might have led to the popularity of a “night cap”, a drink to cap the night and help you drift off. What you might now know, though, is that alcohol makes sleep more restless.
So, while a drink (or more) might help you drift off, the quality of the sleep is much worse. Your body is hard at work, processing the alcohol and sugar that’s working their way through your body, making for suboptimal sleeping conditions.
Additionally, alcohol also dehydrates, which is another inhibitor of sleep.
Going to bed and getting at the same time every day is what your body craves. Even on weekends, if you try to maintain this sleep pattern, your body will sooner lock into a routine.
Your body (and many other organisms) has a circadian rhythm. This is an internal, 24-hour clock that influences sleep, hormones, appetite and temperature. Numerous studie (including this one from Taiwan) found that irregular sleeping/waking patterns led to more inconsistent sleep.
Your body is constantly communicating with you. Just as you start to get peckish at lunchtime, if you maintain a constant bedtime, you’ll start to get drowsy at the same time every evening. This is one of the keys to consistent, quality sleep.
