The Better Sleep Council surveyed sleep doctors about what they wouldn’t do prior to falling asleep and their answers could mean the difference between lying awake or getting restful sleep.
1. Don’t watch the news before falling asleep – The new stories can cause anxiety or worry making it harder to fall asleep.
2. Don’t work in bed, you want to maintain the association that bed is only for sex and sleep.
3. Working Out – Working out in the morning or throughout the day can do wonders for insomnia, however, working out before bed can release energy that keeps them from falling asleep.
4. Having tense conversations before bed could be keeping you up with negative emotions swirling in your head making it hard for you to wind down.
5. Drinking caffeine can obviously keep you up at night making sleep harder to achieve.
6. Drink alcohol – although it can help you fall asleep, it does disrupt sleep patterns later during the night.
7. Using electronic devices without a blue light filter, blue light signals to the brain to stay awake. It suppresses melatonin that is needed to help you fall asleep.
8. Bright lights in the room where you’re sleeping also suppresses melatonin production.
9. Spending too much awake time in bed could make you disassociate the bed with sleep. Bottom line: make your bed a sacred, sleeping, and sex only space.
Do you do any of these things? What can you do to help yourself to get a better night’s sleep?
