10 Keys To Good Sleep Hygiene

Good sleep hygiene is the essential condition for adequate rest. There are key aspects that you must take into account, do not miss them!

There are many people in the world who have difficulty sleeping. Try as they might, they can’t easily fall asleep. Maybe they just need to apply some basic sleep hygiene guidelines to rest peacefully, without being disturbed by anything.

When you don’t have a good night’s sleep, a lot of difficulties arise. The brain needs to pause daily to carry out processes that it cannot carry out during wakefulness. If you do not have those rest periods, you function poorly throughout the day and, in the long term, the consequences can be worse.

The importance of sleep hygiene is that, by applying its guidelines properly, it allows you to get a restful sleep. It includes very simple measures that are easy to carry out. It is enough to follow them constantly and in a short time they become a healthy habit.

These are ten of those keys to achieving good sleep hygiene :

1. A suitable atmosphere

It is essential to create the right conditions to achieve a peaceful sleep. If you have difficulty falling asleep, surely a noisy or very bright environment is not going to help you. Similarly, temperature is a central element. The appropriate thing is that you adapt your room in such a way that you have those factors controlled.

2. Previous preparation, a key to sleep hygiene

For basic human activities like eating or sleeping, the body and mind respond very well if we program them. Good sleep hygiene involves creating rituals at bedtime.

Basically, it is about you slowing down the pace of activity little by little so that you enter rest mode. It is convenient, for example, to take a warm bath and drink a relaxing infusion before going to bed.

3. Control over food consumption

Eating healthy helps us sleep better. Dinner is essential at this point, and it should never be heavy. Fullness is not a good ally of sleep, but neither is trying to sleep with a feeling of hunger. Ideally, dinner is light, but sufficient, and that you eat about three hours before going to sleep.

4. Ingestion of certain substances

For obvious reasons, drinking stimulant drinks can affect your rest. One of the basic guidelines of good sleep hygiene is not to ingest these types of substances after mid-afternoon. This includes coffee, tea, chocolate, sodas, and of course energy drinks. All of them increase your alertness and make it more difficult for you to sleep.

5. The importance of exercise in sleep hygiene

Physical exercise is great for all purposes, including sleep. It is good that you adopt a routine of daily exercises, according to your age and your physical condition. The only condition is that you do not carry out these types of activities at a time close to bedtime. After a day of exercise, it takes the body between two and four hours to return to its normal rhythm.

6. The daytime nap

Currently, not many can afford to take a nap after lunch. If you are one of those lucky few, if anything, don’t overdo it. The nap cannot last more than 20 minutes, if you want to get a good night’s sleep. In fact, if you have a lot of difficulty falling asleep, better eliminate naps from your routine.

7. Regular schedules in sleep hygiene

As we noted before, it is very good for the body that we have regular routines in our basic functions. Going to bed and getting up at the same time will help you significantly to solve any problem you have with sleep. Once you acquire the habit, the same body will begin to ask you to rest at the usual time.

8. Electronic devices

To have a correct sleep hygiene it is necessary to turn off all the electronic devices that you have around you. There is no way you can sleep well if you have the TV on or leave your mobile phone near the bed; much less if you take your computer with you to work a little before going to sleep. At the time of rest, all these devices must be switched off.

9. Relaxation techniques

Relationship techniques are an excellent alternative for those with chronic sleep problems. Even for those who do not have so many difficulties it is advisable to do some relaxation exercises shortly before going to bed. It is one of those sleep hygiene guidelines that guarantees a better rest.

10. The bed: a decisive factor in sleep hygiene

It is important that you are aware that the bed is for having sex and sleeping, nothing more than that. Don’t work, watch TV, or eat on it. If you can’t fall asleep, get up and go back to bed only if you think you’re ready for sleep.

Likewise, one of the best investments you can make is to have a good bed, since there you will spend a third of your life. Think about it, it’s worth it!