Do You Have Good Sleep Hygiene?
Compare your habits with 4 expert tips
Setting yourself up for good sleep is setting yourself up for a good day. Which is setting yourself up for a good life! Yeah, there’s a lot riding on sleep.
But these expert tips aren’t the be-all, end-all in determining your sleep hygiene; you can help yourself measure your current sleep hygiene by answering these four questions:
Are you:
- Having a hard time falling asleep?
- Experiencing frequent sleep disturbances?
- Suffering daytime sleepiness?
- Experiencing an overall lack of consistency in sleep quantity or quality?
While this may sound like a late-night infomercial for the latest questionable drug, here are some expert-recommended steps you may want to incorporate into your nightly routine to better your sleep hygiene.
30-minute wind-down
This one is a little obvious, but it’s about being deliberate with it. And, about catching your body up with your mind. I deliberately introduce calm into my sleep routine through light stretching, like yoga. There are even yoga sessions that are designed for this part of a nightly routine.
Soft music, reading, and other relaxation techniques will also do the trick.
No-screen time
In this case, screens count as electronic back-lit devices like cell phones, tablets, readers, and computers — and fluorescent and LED lights — because they emit blue light.
I’ve been really struggling with this one lately, as the world has become more stressful for obvious reasons in the past one-and-a-half years. But I haven’t given up the struggle, and here's why:
Blue light suppresses melatonin production, “a natural hormone released in the evening to help you feel tired and ready for sleep.” This suppression increases alertness, interfering with your circadian rhythm.
According to the Sleep Foundation:
“Blue light can also reduce the amount of time you spend in slow-wave and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, two stages of the sleep cycle that are vital for cognitive functioning.”
It’s recommended that you block out 30–60 minutes before bedtime to be device-free.
Relaxation
Easier said than done, right? But with this mindset shift, you can focus on relaxation rather than I need to fall asleep, I need to fall asleep now because then I’ll get 7 hours and 59 minutes of sleep. 7 hours and 58 minutes…
I like to do this through meditation. Blessedly, there are a lot of places now to gain access to guided meditations, but I prefer the Headspace app.
As someone who went from, “Eh, I’ll sleep when I die,” to a steady routine (that’s improved skin clarity, alertness, and my ability to care for others), the most important part of this process is to prioritize your sleep.
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