Are you having trouble sleeping at night?
There are many reasons why people cannot sleep. Several factors also come into play as people try their best to attain that elusive shut-eye. Americans even spend billions of dollars on sleep aids and other remedies.
Thus, you need to learn how to form good habits when it comes to sleeping. But before you can do that, you need to identify the bad habits that you are doing innocently or otherwise.
Continue reading below as we look at seven habits that are messing up your sleep and how you can address them.
1. Coffee and Alcohol at Night
Learning how to form good habits that will improve your sleep begins with revisiting what you normally take in before sleeping. Are you a big coffee drinking? Then start cutting the habit of drinking coffee before bed.
The caffeine in coffee can easily keep you awake at night. This is true especially if you drink your cup of coffee within four hours of your bedtime.
If you are a beer lover, consider cutting it too at night. Drinking alcohol before sleeping can reduce the amount of REM sleep that you get. REM is the phase where restoring and repairing the body happens.
Cut the habit by avoiding that cup of coffee 4 to 6 hours before heading to bed. Dropping it all together after lunch onwards would be much better.
As for the alcohol, stay away from beer and wine within 5 hours of your bedtime.
2. Weekend Sleep Catch-Ups
Do you often sleep late at night and try to make up for lost sleep during weekends? Though this may give that much-needed rest your body needs, it can also lead to something detrimental to your health.
Catching up on sleep during the weekend can disrupt your sleep cycle. For example, you choose to make up by sleeping until noon on a Saturday. But by nightfall, you will have a hard time shutting your eyes.
This automatically resets your body clock for the following day. When the weekday begins, you will have to reset it anew because of your work schedule.
The key to breaking this habit is to strike a balance. Your goal is to get a few extra hours of sleep during weekends. However, you should learn not to overdo it.
Also, be consistent with your sleep schedule. If it’s time to sleep, drop everything and go to sleep.
3. Checking Your Social Media Before Dozing Off
With people’s dependence on smartphones, staying away from them can be a tall order. It doesn’t get easier if you’re into social media, too. Thus, another habit you need to break is looking at your social media accounts before sleeping.
This is important for many reasons. Firstly, social media is full of things that can keep you awake. There’s news, videos, and other items that can keep your mind active.
Secondly, the bright light coming from your smartphone is keeping your body from producing melatonin. This is the sleep-inducing hormone that your body produces once the lights begin to dim.
Unfortunately, the light from your device can confuse your brain. It can keep the brain from producing melatonin. Hence, your mind will remain wide awake.
Practice the habit of staying away from your device 2 hours before bedtime. This can be tough at first but still doable.
Also, consider wearing a pair of blue-light blocking glasses. Blue light also contributes to the disruption of your sleep hormones.
4. Intense Exercising at Night
Another habit you need to tweak involves your daily exercise. If you schedule your intense workouts before bed, you better flip the schedule and do it earlier.
Vigorous exercising at night can increase your heart rate. It can also raise your body temperature, as well as blood pressure. When these happen, you will have a hard time dozing off.
The only remedy for this is to revisit your schedule. Instead of working out at night, do it in the morning or the afternoon. The key is to avoid exercising within 3 hours of your bedtime.
Do your runs on weight-lifting in the morning and expect a good night’s sleep.
5. Binging Before Bedtime
Any habit that involves food is tough to break. Binge-eating before bedtime is one of the worst habits that can ruin your sleep. This covers your heavy dinner, dessert, and midnight snack.
Binge-eating at night is bad because you are depriving your body of the time to digest what you ate. As a result, you may experience heartburn and indigestion. These two can easily keep you awake.
Make sure to have your dinner 2 to 3 hours before bedtime. This also means no more snacks from that time until you go to sleep.
6. Working Until Bedtime
Working, especially in bed, is one of the biggest culprits for lack of sleep. With your laptop in front of you, your brain will not produce melatonin. Your mind will stay active and that thought of finishing your work will replace the urge to rest.
For starters, you should avoid working in bed. If you’re working at home, don’t turn your bedroom into your workstation. Set aside your computer 2 hours before bedtime.
7. Turning Up the Heat
Last but not least, turning up your thermostat at night can also disrupt your sleep. Sure, you will feel the need to turn the temperature up a bit particularly during winter. But don’t fall into the temptation.
Instead of turning up the heat, embrace the coldness in your room. You will fall asleep faster once your body temperature drops.
Take your time to eliminate these bad habits. How long does it take to form a good habit? Twenty-one days is the expected time, so don’t push yourself and take it slow.
Let Us Teach You How to Form Good Habits and More
These bad sleeping habits get in your way when you want a good night’s sleep. Learn how to avoid them and how to form good habits, instead, to give yourself a healthy amount of sleep today!
Connect with us today and let us teach you how to form and keep good habits. If you have existing health concerns, we will also be happy to look into them.